


Stolen

by ceresilupin



Category: Naruto
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-05
Updated: 2004-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-22 11:38:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceresilupin/pseuds/ceresilupin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six years after the war with Orochimaru, Team 7 is an elite jounin/chunnin team that's famous for both ingenuity and getting things done.  But a new mission hits close to home, and even teamed with their old sensei, Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke may not be enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ahahahahathestorythatatemybrain. One of them, at least. End total page count is ninety-two (35000 words), so you've been warned. I also started this fic way back yonder, when the manga was at, like, chapter 190 and I was still hoping the current arc would have a happy ending. You can assume either that it's AU or that I'm one heck of an optimist.

**June 13**

 _1:32 PM_

“We don’t have a lot of time!” Naruto’s voice was unusually urgent as he kicked open the door, a kunai in each hand. “Ten minutes, maybe. Hello? Is anyone here?”

“I know we don’t!” Sakura snapped. She leaned against the doorframe as Naruto inspected the small cottage, Sasuke a dead weight over her shoulder. “I think this place is abandoned.”

Naruto glanced at her, then Sasuke. “Put him on the table,” he said, gesturing. “I’ll check the bedrooms.”

Sakura kicked the door shut and staggered to the table as Naruto vanished down the short hall. He returned a moment later, hands empty. “No one.”

“All right.” Sakura hauled off the medpack she wore and dropped it beside Sasuke. “Check his pulse and get his shirt off.”

Naruto obeyed easily. “D’you think he’ll be all right?”

“Of course he will,” Sakura said firmly. She glanced up as Sasuke’s bloodstained shirt hit the ground and winced. There was a long, deep gash in his belly and the silvery glint of an enemy shuriken buried in his shoulder -- Naruto pulled it out and glanced at the gushing wound curiously. Biting back a gag, Sakura propped Sasuke up with the medpack and started wrapping his shoulder. “If you can stand there and gawp, then you can get out the needle and thread and sew up his stomach.”

Even Naruto paused at that. “Wha?”

She fixed him with an annoyed look. “Unless you want him to bleed to death,” she added coolly.

Naruto winced. “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted, looking down at their injured friend. Sasuke’s head hit the tabletop with a quiet thump as Sakura laid him back down.

She took the needle and threaded it. “Watch me,” she said. “Pay attention.” She took a deep breath, fighting down her nausea, and then added, “I’m only going to do a little bit, and then I need to cast the _kakumau no jutsu_. Are you ready?”

Naruto leaned forward. “I’m ready.”

~

 _1:45 PM_

“Half an hour,” Sakura grumbled, dusting her hands of sand and dried blood. “Six years of experience and all I get us is thirty lousy minutes.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Naruto said philosophically. He taped the last bandage around Sasuke’s stomach and patted his uninjured shoulder. “There you go, jerk. Next time, don’t run into the line of fire like that.”

“What was he thinking?” Sakura mumbled to herself. She began re-packing the medpack, slim quick hands managing somehow to cram a large amount of junk into a small amount of space.

“‘Oh, look, those ninjas have shuriken!’” Naruto suggested chirpily. “‘I know! I’ll run out there in front of them like a big stupidhead!’ How should I know what he was thinking? Ask jerk-face here when he wakes up.”

“I mean, it’s been years since Sasuke was hit with shuriken,” Sakura muttered, apparently ignoring everything Naruto said. “Where they using some kind of illusion?”

Naruto ran his hand through his spiky hair. “I don’t think so. I could see them fine. I think Sasuke was just being stupid.”

“Hmph.” Sakura set the medpack on the floor and reached into the other bag she carried. “Well, you’d better not tell Hokage-sama. She’ll throttle him.” Sakura laid a clean shirt for Sasuke on the tabletop and went to sit beside Naruto on the floor.

Naruto grinned fondly. “Yeah, she would, wouldn’t she? Crazy old hag.”

Sakura rolled her eyes.

They waited around for about twenty minutes before Sasuke finally began to show signs of life. Naruto was tearing the cottage apart in his boredom, rooting through the empty cabinets and drawers in search of food, and Sakura was meditating, trying both to rebuild her stamina and ignore Naruto’s racket.

She glanced up as Sasuke coughed. “Sasuke! Are you all right?”

“Hey! Is the suicidal idiot awake?”

Sasuke didn’t even look towards Naruto’s voice as he muttered, “Idiot.”

“Bastard. Hey, I saved your life! You should be nicer to me.”

“Heh. Funny.” Sasuke rested his hand against the cotton covering his middle. “What is this?”

“I sewed up your stomach,” Naruto explained. He re-entered the main room, foodless but covered in dust. “You almost got hit with _kenkaze_.”

Sakura shivered with the memory. Naruto added, “Sakura-chan saved your butt. I’ve never seen _kenkaze_ do that before.”

Sasuke stopped trying to peek under his bandages and looked at Naruto. “Do what?”

“Divide into lots of little _kenkaze_ and attack the ninja who used it.” Naruto grinned fiendishly. “It was cool. He -- the ninja-dude -- went like this --” Naruto demonstrated -- “and then yelled, and went like this, and this other guy came running up, and the _kenkaze_ went whoosh! --”

Sasuke glanced at Sakura appraisingly and sat upright as she blushed, pleased. He spotted the shirt at his side, with it’s customary wide collar, and pulled it on.

Sakura glanced at his chest, then away. Even smeared with blood and dirt, it was a nice chest. Not that she liked him _like that_ anymore. She’d learned her lesson well -- too well, probably, but she’d always been kind of dense about the important things.

 _“It’s like chicken pox,”_ she’d explained to Ino. _“Everyone catches it when they’re a kid and it’s painful and itchy and just gross, and then it’s over and they’re immune. Trust me. I’ve seen Sasuke happy and hung over and clinically dead and I’ve overheard him having sex. Any crush I might have? Is history.”_

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate his . . . musculature, that was it. Sasuke had a nice musculature. All of that vengeance-seeking and rivalry with Naruto had been good for his body.

Completely unaware of the dirty thoughts Sakura was thinking, the boys had started to argue. “By the way, Sasuke- _san_ , what kind of Jounin gets hit with shuriken? What were you doing, sleeping?”

Sasuke looked annoyed. “You know what I was doing, you were right behind me.”

Naruto smirked. “Right. I was behind you and _I_ saw the guy who hit you. But you obviously didn’t. So you’re saying I’m better than you?”

Sasuke’s eyes glinted. “Dream on, dead last.”

“Hey! It’s been years since I was dead last.”

“Once dead last, always dead last.”

Naruto hung his head and mumbled, “I’m going to kill Iruka-sensei for calling me that.”

“If you can,” Sasuke taunted. “Dead last.”

“I’m as good as you are!”

Sasuke scoffed. “You’re only a chuunin.”

“But one day --”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it before --”

“Boys,” Sakura interrupted firmly. They looked down at her reluctantly. “Finish up. We’ve only got about five more minutes.”

Sasuke finally seemed to realize where they were. He stood slowly, favoring his right leg, and adjusted his headplate even as he scanned the room. “An abandoned cottage?”

“Just outside of Konoha,” Naruto said promptly. “It took you that long to realize? Jeez, you’re slow today --”

“I’m warning you --”

Sakura cleared her throat. They fell silent.

Sasuke went to the nearest window and peered out, rotating his injured shoulder gingerly. “ _Kakumau no jutsu?_ ”

“Yep,” Sakura said brightly, standing and going to the medpack and luggage bag. They were carefully woven and packed to be light, not that it made much of a difference in the end. It was probably a good thing that she traveled with the most talented chuunin and jounin in years -- she couldn’t image how Chouji, who was the ‘healer’ (and therefore the luggage horse) of his team managed with just Shikamaru and Ino, who bickered constantly.

Not that Naruto and Sasuke were much better, really. At least they weren’t dating and she didn’t have to invest in ear plugs. Although Chouji might share, if she asked nicely enough.

“Good,” Sasuke said absently. His hand slipped beneath his collar, adjusting his bandages to make them less visible to opponents. “Enemy count?”

“Aside from the four that Sakura’s _kenkaze_ cut up? The same.” Naruto joined Sasuke by the window. “What are you thinking?”

“They’re waiting near the Southern Path,” Sasuke murmured, his eyes whirling and odd as he looked with his _sharingan_. “There’s another group in the East.”

“Damn,” Naruto commented idly. Sakura shouldered her packs and remained silent.

Sasuke’s _sharingan_ faded and he rubbed his eyes, looking like a sleepy little boy. “There’ll be ambushes along the way as well, and traps. They can’t see us but they know where we are.”

Sakura joined the boys at the window, sliding off her headplate and readjusting it carefully to keep her hair out of her face. “What are we going to do?”

“Mow them down!” Naruto suggested enthusiastically.

Sasuke glanced at him scornfully. “We’ll go around the East group and enter along the Northern Path,” he said. His hand came up to grip the small emblem he wore at his throat. All three of them had at least one, although Sakura wore more and kept two small pouches of them at her waist -- she’d invented them herself to overcome her own fatal weakness; not enough stamina. Naruto and Sasuke placed some of their own chakara in the pendant during peaceful times so she could draw on it during battle to heal them. She couldn’t use their chakara for anything else, however, like offensive or defensive ninjutsu. Only healing, and only healing on the one who put the chakara in the necklace.

Sasuke and Naruto had borrowed from her design to store chakara in case they were tired and needed it. Concerned, Sakura put her hand on Sasuke’s shoulder, catching his attention. “Should we recast _kakumau no jutsu_ so that you can rest some more?”

“No.” Sasuke dropped his pendant. “We need to get those scrolls to the Hokage.” He narrowed his eyes briefly in thought, and added, “I’ll take the rear. Naruto, you lead.”

Naruto was delighted. “Really?”

“Don’t make me regret it.”

Sakura frowned and adjusted her packs. But Sasuke _was_ the leader. “We’ll be visible in about two minutes. Are you guys ready?”

“ _Oh_ yeah!” Naruto crowed, pumping his fist. “I’m ready. Bring it on!”

Sasuke rolled his eyes. “Have you recovered enough?” he asked Sakura.

She shrugged and smiled a little sheepishly. “I’m good. I didn’t really use much chakara, actually. There wasn’t, um. Well, much of a battle. And you were the only one who needed healing, so . . . .”

Sasuke turned pink. Naruto snickered loudly. “Good,” Sasuke said, ignoring Naruto. “Then let’s go.”

~

 **June 14**

 _10:14 AM_

“It sounds like quite an adventure,” Tsunade said, smirking, as Naruto’s spirited rendition finally came to an end. The Hokage was a pale-haired, somewhat small woman with an impressive bosom and determined eyes that could make anyone step back warily. “Thank you, Naruto.”

Naruto beamed. “No problem, old lady Tsunade.”

Her smile vanished. “Stop calling me that!”

“Why? You are! You just make yourself look young.” Naruto crossed his arms defiantly, scowling. “You’re cheating.”

“I am not cheating,” Tsunade said composedly. “Sit down and be quiet or I’ll make your next assignment pulling weeds.”

From the audience of village council members, someone muttered in a small voice, “Please don’t.”

Grumbling, Naruto plopped into his seat between Sakura and Sasuke. A sharp elbow dug into his left ribs -- he looked over into a pair of angry green eyes. “Why do you always bicker with her like that, you’re just going to get us all in trouble!” Sakura hissed. “I can’t believe you!”

“I’m curious, though,” Tsunade said, ignoring Naruto’s and Sakura’s whispered exchange, “as to how you were so badly injured, Sasuke.”

Sasuke looked sullen.

“Oh, that,” Naruto said casually. “He was a moron and walked straight into an ambush without blinking.”

Sasuke turned his head slightly to the left so he could glare woodenly in Naruto’s direction.

“And then he got hit with about seventeen shuriken,” Naruto continued cheerfully. “Sakura saved his life -- you shoulda seen it, old lady Tsunade --”

“Stop _calling me that!_ ”

“ -- it was great. There was a kenkaze, and Sakura hit it with some jutsu or other that split up in a hundred little parts.” A murmur rose up among the small group of ninjas. Sakura struggled to blend in with the wall. “It was awesome! The first ninja guy, the one who cast it, went like _this_ \--” Naruto jumped up to demonstrate, and his teammates each grabbed a shoulder and yanked him back down. Unruffled, Naruto continued. “And then he yelled, and went like _this_ , and this other guy came running up, and the _kenkaze_ went whoosh! --”

Tsunade’s lips quirked. “‘Whoosh?,” she repeated.

“Yes.” Naruto sank back into his seat with a smirk. “It went ‘whoosh’. And then it split up and just _attacked_.” He grinned happily, apparently deciding to spare them the gory details. “It was amazing.”

“Anyway,” Tsunade said calmly, pitching her voice to be heard over the murmurs, “I don’t think we need to tell you to be careful, Sasuke, as Sakura and Naruto have probably done so already. At length.” Sasuke’s expression grew even stormier. “But make sure to take enough time to heal properly. You’re one of our best jounin, and you’ll be seeing action soon.” She turned to Shizune, who was waiting by her side with the scrolls that Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto had retrieved. “I guess you guys are curious about what these are?”

“Yes,” Sakura said, keeping her face straight.

“Milady, I’m not sure --”

Tsunade fixed the outspoken councillor with a cool stare. Sakura inspected him carefully -- a villager, not a ninja, with wealthy clothes and a servant at his side. “Yes?”

He fidgeted. “Never mind.”

“Hn.” Tsunade checked the seals, created with chakara centuries ago. “At least you three haven’t tampered with them.”

“Oh, no,” Sakura said, gripping Naruto’s hand and digging in her nails to keep him from giggling. “Of course not.” Sasuke, who was very good at repairing even the most complex of seals with his _sharingan_ , twitched slightly but didn’t crack a smirk.

Tsunade broke the seal and unfurled the scroll. One of the ninjas who sat at her right came forward to look. Sakura blinked as she recognized Kakashi with his _sharingan_ uncovered -- he eyed the seals on the other scrolls and gave Sasuke a very sardonic look, but didn’t say anything.

Shizune, on Tsunade’s other side, looked puzzled. “What’s that about?”

“Detonation and warding jutsus,” Naruto piped up helpfully, with a mischevious grin. “If I remember right.”

Sakura hid her face. Sasuke stared straight ahead and muttered, “Idiot.”

Tsunade’s mouth fell open and Kakashi calmly re-took his seat, entirely unsurprised, either because he could tell Sasuke had tampered with the seals, or because he just knew them that well.

“Milady,” a councilman said, voice strained, “to have opened the scrolls --”

“Well, it _is_ Naruto,” Tsunade said, trying hard not to laugh. “I don’t know what you were expecting, but I’m not surprised.”

“It’s all good and well,” another man said, voice cutting, “to coddle him as your favorite, but milady, he is the demon fox! We cannot forg --”

Naruto’s mischevious grin vanished and he stared dully at the floor. Sasuke stood gracefully and would have stepped forward if Sakura hadn't grabbed his wrist. “Sasuke, don’t -- !”

“Excuse me,” Tsunade said, voice dripping liquid ice. “But what did you say, councillor?” The man bowed his head as his companions shifted away from him, staring at Sasuke. “It had better not be what I thought it was. Jounin Sasuke, sit down.”

His eyes were simmering with hateful rage. “You heard what the bastard --”

“I said _sit down!_ ” Her voice was nearly a roar. Sasuke stepped back. He didn’t sit, but no one really expected him to.

Tsunade let it go. “Your name, councillor?” she demanded.

“Hokage-sama --”

 _“Your name?”_

He swallowed hard. “Noboru Ito.”

“Noboru Ito, you, as a member of the ruling council, should be very well acquainted with the village’s laws. And one is that the demon fox is not spoken of.” Tsunade’s voice grew even colder, if that was possible. “Naruto controls the fox with a combination of determination and skill, and guards it as his most closely kept secret. Quite wisely, as his extended conflicts with Akatsuki has shown.”

Tsunade glared at the other councillors and the gathered ninjas. Sakura noticed that Iruka was on his feet, glowering across the room. “If anyone doubts that Naruto has anything less than perfect control, they may take it up with me. Is that understood?”

Murmured assent. Shizune, at Tsunade’s side as always, scanned the group of the barest hint of derision or contempt. Her level eyes found none.

“And the punishment for disobeying the Fourth Hokage’s law still stands. Ito, you will produce the documentation for your land and property, and I will see to it that it is halved.”

Ito nodded, plainly simmering.

“No,” Naruto said softly.

Every head turned to him. He looked up and met Tsunade’s startled gaze, blue eyes boring into amber. “No more punishments,” he said, voice oddly quiet. “Not anymore.”

She hesitated, but sighed. “Fine. Ito, sit down and keep your fat mouth shut before I change my mind.”

He bowed low. “Thank you, Hokage-sama.” He did not thank Naruto for saving him, but Naruto didn’t seem to mind -- he just grabbed a handful of Sasuke’s shirt and hauled him back to his seat, expression dark. Sasuke sat without protest.

“The scrolls will be put to good use,” Tsunade said, voice clipped. Her previous, playful air was gone. “There has been a rash of kidnappings in the village, and the warding jutsus will be useful in protecting the rest of our children.” She glanced to her right where Shizune was standing, hands clasped behind her back.

She stepped forward, meeting Sakura’s eyes. “I will give you your next assignments when the meeting is adjourned.”

“That’s now,” Tsunade said. “All of you, go home and look after your kids. The jutsus won’t be in effect until tomorrow evening.” Her expression was bleak as she swept from the room.

In the following swell of noise and movement, Sakura caught sight of Iruka and his worried dark eyes. He clearly wanted very much to look after his ‘kid’, but Naruto wasn’t easy an easy one to protect at the best of times, and his face was still flushed red with anger and humiliation. She gave him a tiny wave and he smiled fleetingly.

Shizune gestured for them to follow her, and they met in a small hallway that led to Tsunade’s private rooms. Naruto ignored the stares directed his way with self-conscious twitches, Sakura’s shoulder brushing his reassuringly.

“I have your assignments,” Shizune said, without preamble. “As I’m sure you know, most of our ninjas are out on missions, which means that our own protections are scanty. Kakashi-san has been put in charge of investigating the crimes and finding the children, but there’s only so much one person can do.” She smiled faintly and nodded to someone behind them.

Startled, the trio glanced back and found Kakashi. He leaned against the doorframe and returned Shizune’s nod. His expression -- at least, what could be seen of it -- was grim.

“He’s requested assistance,” Shizune continued, “and since he has experience in working with you three, and since you’re all acquainted with each other’s strengths, it seemed wise to put you together. And since Kakashi-san has seniority, Hokage-sama thought putting him in charge would be wise.” Shizune glanced at the notoriously rebellious Sasuke.

He scowled, insulted. “I knew that,” he muttered.

“Sasuke knows everything,” Naruto reminded Shizune mock-patiently. Sasuke looked pleased. “Don’t forget.”

Shizune hid her smile. “That’s all. Kakashi-san will tell you where to go and what to do.” She disappeared down the hallway into Tsunade’s rooms, passing the ANBU guards with barely a glance. The door shut with a soft click.

“That’s it, then,” Kakashi said, pushing off the wall. “Let’s get started.”


	2. Chapter 2

**June 15**

 _10:57 AM_

“He’s so sexy,” Ino said, propping her hand on her chin. The object of her affections was on the other side of the village square, pouring over a set of scrolls similar to Sakura’s own. “So dreamy. That midnight black hair, those intense eyes . . . that pale, creamy skin . . . those cheekbones . . . .”

“Hn,” Sakura murmured, trying to sound interested. She unrolled the scroll a bit and puzzled over the newest paragraph.

Ino sighed wistfully. “And he’s so strong and fast, not bulky but not skinny.” She smiled slyly, twirling a lock of hair around one perfectly manicured finger. “I wonder what he looks like with his shirt off . . . .”

Sakura, who knew very well what Sasuke looked like with his shirt off, possibly because she spent so much time healing him only to send him back into battle, said, “Hn,” again.

“That narrow waist . . . those shoulders . . . .”

Sakura finally looked up from her scroll. “Those shoulders?” she demanded. “Ino, you’ve reached a new low. You’re fantasizing about his shoulders?”

Ino drew back defensively. “They’re sexy!”

“They connect his arms to his body!” Sakura cried. “What’s sexy about them?”

“One day,” Ino said loftily, “you will fall in love, and you will understand the allure of men’s shoulders.”

Sakura stared.

“What?”

She went back to her papers.

Sometime later, when Sasuke apparently tired of being visually groped by Ino and went home, Sakura glanced up again. Carefully, but still casually, she said, “Speaking of falling in love.” Ino looked wary. “How's Shikamaru been lately?”

Ino’s hands clenched into fists. “Do not mention that name to me,” she snarled. “I hate that name!”

Sakura backed off quickly. “Okay.”

“He’s an asshole!” Ino exclaimed. “A total asshole. I don’t know why I try. Anytime -- anytime at all -- when I try to do something nice, he’s so  _suspicious_ , always saying that women act nice when they’re really mad --”

“Unfair,” Sakura said, honestly. “You’re never nice.”

“ _Exactly!_ ” Ino pointed melodramatically. “Exactly! But does he listen to me? No. And if I try to talk to him at all -- about anything, I swear! -- he says I talk too much and that he’s trying to think!”

Sakura nodded, moving her scrolls out of Ino’s range and eyeing the tall glasses of juice. One careless sweep of Ino’s arm could destroy a millennia of research.

“But he talks to Chouji all the time! Constantly! About the stupidest things!” Ino put her head in her hands. “And anytime we argue, Chouji takes his side. ( _Poor Chouji,_  Sakura thought.  _Getting stuck between those two._ ) God, I hate them! All of them! Men!”

“We’re a sneaky bunch,” a light voice said.

Sakura looked over her shoulder as Ino sputtered in embarrassment. “Kakashi-sensei. Would you like to join us?”

He looked pointedly at Ino, red-faced and murderous. “Hm. Perhaps that’s not a good idea.”

“Perhaps.” Sakura turned to Ino with a sad smile. “I really need to go. Do you feel better after talking?”

“A little,” Ino said glumly. “I was probably too harsh on him, do you think?”

 _Right on cue._  “Maybe,” Sakura said, packing up her things.

“And I should apologize to Chouji. He always gets stuck in the middle.”

Kakashi glanced aside as if to say,  _poor Chouji._  Sakura hid her smile.

“Wasn’t there something you wanted to talk about, too, Sakura-chan?” Ino wondered, suddenly remembering. Her pale eyebrows drew together with concern. “You were the one who called me and all, and you seemed bothered --”

“I’m okay,” Sakura interrupted hastily. It had been a mistake to call Ino when she was upset, but she hadn’t been thinking. And her reward was Kakashi’s deceptively uninterested gaze, boring into the back of her head.

Oh, well. Nothing she could do about it now but hope that the situation managed to stay a secret -- even from Kakashi, who, she was sometimes convinced, could use his  _sharingan_  to read minds. At least,  _her_  mind.

“I’ll talk to you soon,” she added, and gave Ino a quick hug.

“That woman is certifiable,” Kakashi muttered as they crossed the street, apparently deciding to let Sakura off the proverbial hook. Someone waved as they passed and he returned the greeting jauntily.

“You only just noticed?”

She couldn’t see his face, of course, but she could tell he smiled. They made their way in silence, until something blond and orange nearly crashed into them. “Sakura-chan! Kakashi-sensei!”

Sakura rolled her eyes and kept Naruto from falling. “You’re acting like a twelve-year-old again, Naruto.”

“So?”

She sighed. Kakashi chuckled and said to someone, “Naruto’s been retelling the  _kenkaze_  story?”

Sakura glanced back, past Naruto, and saw Iruka. “Hello, Iruka-sensei.”

He was looking rather green. “Hello, Sakura.”

“The  _kenkaze_  story,” Naruto said thoughtfully. “Have I really told it that many times?”

“Yes,” Iruka said emphatically. To Kakashi and Sakura, he added, “I offered to take him out for ramen. Which turned out to be a mistake.”

“That’s not my fault!” Naruto protested. “Who knew you were squeamish?”

Blushing, Sakura faced forward. “Naruto, please stop running around telling that story. It’s not that impressive --”

“Are you  _kidding?_  It was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!”

“-- and it was kind of foolish.” As all three men looked at her, her blush worsened. “It could have backfired and killed us all and I just got lucky and if people start thinking I can work miracles by breathing then they’ll get false expectations and --”

Naruto grabbed her from behind, pulling her back into a kind of walking hug. “Chill, Sakura-chan.”

She took a deep breath and chilled.

“Besides, we all know you don’t work miracles by breathing,” Naruto said, laughing and pushing her gently. “You work them by using hand seals!”

Sakura whirled, ready to bash her teammate's head in. “Naruto! It’s not like I don’t have enough pressure already! That’s not funny!”

Naruto ran and hid behind Iruka, who held up his hands and looked worried as Sakura advanced. She darted around him and reached out --

\-- and all she caught was a handful of Naruto’s jacket as he jumped onto the nearest rooftop. Glaring, she planted her hands on her hips. “Naruto! Come down here!”

He stuck his tongue out.

“You’re so immature!” she shouted, trying not to laugh. “We’re going to be late!”

Naruto waved and leaped onto a nearby rooftop, disappearing quickly from view. Sakura sighed and realized that  _she_  was the one who was going to be late -- Kakashi and Iruka had continued on around the corner and left her behind.

“Very nice,” she muttered, and ran after them.

~

 _11:15 AM_

“Eight children,” Kakashi said, seated comfortably on a short fence. Iruka paced back and forth, contributing occasionally. “Only one was missing before you three went to get the scrolls.”

He added, “Three of them have disappeared since my investigation began.”

“Only eight?” Naruto asked. He was sprawled out in the grass with Sakura sitting at his side, both of them watching Kakashi attentively. Sasuke was leaning against the fence a short distance away, arms crossed over his chest. His bangs fell into his face as he glared at the ground.

Sakura stared at Naruto. “ _Only eight?_  What a horrible thing to say!”

“No, not like that!” Naruto pushed himself up on his elbows and tugged his headplate off, readjusting it nervously. His hair clung to his temples with sweat. “I mean, what with the way everyone’s talking, you’d think there were, like, fifty children gone.”

Sakura shuddered at the thought.

“Eight children is more than enough to warrant concern,” Kakashi said seriously. “Especially since we have no leads, no reliable defenses, no reason to believe they’re still alive.” He shrugged, putting his hands in his pockets. “It’s only going to get worse.”

“Five of them had classes with me,” Iruka said, staring into space. “One was a genin.”

Naruto stared up at the man with wide eyes, holding his breath. Iruka was too distant to notice. When Naruto returned his attention to Kakashi, he was frowning ferociously. “What should we do?”

“I was hoping you four would have some suggestions,” Kakashi said honestly. “I’m out. Iruka?”

He shook his head. “I can’t think of anything.”

Sakura looked down at her knees, wracking her brain. Tsunade had already tried a tracking jutsu with no success, which meant the odds that Sakura would find anything were almost nil. The defenses to be placed around the village were strong -- the strongest that any of them had ever seen -- but if . . . .

“It’s one of our own,” Sasuke said unexpectedly, interrupting Sakura’s thoughts.

Kakashi looked grim, Iruka startled. “What?”

“Behind the kidnappings. A foreign ninja would have been detected. Someone from Konoha is behind this.” His expression was set, his eyes vague with memory. Sasuke had a lot of experience with betrayal; his own brother killed their family and nearly him as well.

“Maybe someone the kids trust,” Sakura murmured, chilled. “Or at least, they use an illusion to look like them . . . .”

“No illusion jutsus were used,” Kakashi said. “Godaime-sama and I traced them. Every one we could think of - and all that we found was that the academy students use them much more often then they probably should.” He smiled faintly. “To get out of chores and such.”

Sakura grinned. “Too bad most of their parents were probably ninjas, too.”

Sasuke, Naruto, and Iruka just watched them. They didn’t have fond memories of that sort of thing.

“No illusions, no foreigners.” Sasuke crossed his arms, leaning his head back and staring at the sky. “It must be someone they know.”

“Maybe,” Kakashi said, a note of warning in his voice. “Don’t let your personal experiences cloud your perspective.”

Sasuke glowered a bit at that, but seemed to take it under consideration. They were silent for a little longer before Naruto said, “How far was granny able to search with the tracking jutsu?”

“A few dozen miles,” Kakashi said thoughtfully. “Why?”

Naruto glanced at Sakura and Sasuke, who were both watching him. “Those guys that attacked us. About how far were they from the village?”

“Not far,” Sakura said, glancing at Sasuke for confirmation. He nodded. “But there are always enemies outside the village, especially when you’re carrying a bunch of valuable scrolls. I doubt that they had anything to do with the kidnappings.”

“Although they were familiar with the village’s layout,” Sasuke added. “They knew the best ways to block us from entering, and they knew the territory well enough to set elaborate traps.”

Naruto continued. “The tracking spell, it can be blocked?”

Kakashi looked thoughtful. “Not from someone like the Hokage.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Sakura pointed out. “What if there’s another . . . another Orochimaru out there or something?” Everyone stared at her. “It’s possible.”

“And Orochimaru was good at kidnapping the village’s children,” Naruto said. Sakura’s eyes flew open wide and she glanced up at Sasuke again.

“And some of the village’s children were arrogant dumbasses, and left because they wanted to,” Sasuke reminded him coolly. His eyes lit up suddenly. “Did any of the missing children --”

“-- want to leave,” Kakashi finished. His tapped his chin as he thought. “It’s possible. It qualifies as kidnapping either way, since they’re children, but if they left on their own they might be shielding their chakara.”

“Would they know how?”

“They could be taught.” Kakashi’s hand fell to his side. “It’s a good thought.”

Another brief silence. Iruka looked even more worried than before. And Sakura couldn’t help but sympathize. Those children -- whether they left, were snatched away, or some combination thereof -- they were so vulnerable. Almost defenseless. Even that genin . . . the missing student ninja . . . of course, Sasuke had been a genin when he left Konoha, but Sasuke was different. She doubted that any of the missing children had the  _sharingan._

“If . . . .” Everyone looked at her. “If they left on their own, they’re probably still alive.”

“You’re right,” Kakashi said, straightening. “Either way, we need to conduct a physical search of the area.” He looked from Sasuke to Naruto to Sakura, thoughtfully.

“Sakura, work with Godaime-sama to map all of the chakara paths within a dozen miles -- the kidnappers might have thought to shield their chakara, and that of the kids, but I doubt they're strong enough to avoid leaving traces in the area. Once you’re finished, bring me a copy of the map.” To Sasuke and Naruto, he said, “Until she’s done, patrol the area every two to three hours, varying your path and time to prevent ambushes. We already have some stationed ninja doing the same, but you two are better.” He turned to Iruka. “Iruka and I will talk to the parents and classmates of the missing children and try to find any connections between them.”

“Like a reason to leave?” Naruto guessed.

“Or if they were being -- I think your exact words were ‘brainwashed, tricked, or manipulated’. They might also have been blackmailed or bullied.” He paused, and then added, “I’ll recommend a village curfew. Make note of anyone you see break it, but don’t stop them. Relations between the village and the school aren’t as good as they could be.”

Sakura blinked. “They aren’t?”

Kakashi was frowning, she could tell. “No,” he said simply. “You have your orders?” They nodded. “Then go.”

Sasuke and Naruto glanced at each other. “Let me guess -- you want South and West?”

Sasuke’s lips twitched. “You get East and North,” he ordered. “Meet me at the North road in twelve hours and we’ll switch.”

“Roger,” Naruto said, and scowled as Sasuke vanished. “I hate it when he does that.”

Kakashi smiled faintly. “He’s just showing off,” he said, and did the same. Iruka patted Naruto on the shoulder and followed suit.

Sakura punched Naruto lightly. “Be careful.”

“Hey, you too.” He grinned. “Old lady Tsunade is scary.”

“I’ll tell her you said so,” Sakura muttered sourly. “See you.” She teleported away.

Naruto, with far too much power and not enough precision to teleport, jumped into the nearest tree and started his first patrol.

~

 _12:02 PM_

“Hokage-sama?”

The door opened. Sakura blinked up at Shizune. “Oh. Hello, Shizune-san.”

“Hello, Sakura. Come in.” Blinking a little owlishly, Sakura stepped inside and toed off her shoes. Tsunade was sitting at her desk, signing something. “Sakura! You’re here already. C’mere.”

Sakura came to her side, trying not to stare at the papers but unwillingly fascinated. She’d never imagined what the Hokage’s inner quarters looked like, and she was sorry to say her imaginings would have fallen short of the real thing.

“Kakashi mentioned that he might be sending you my way.” Tsunade smiled. “Something about my power and your genius.”

Sakura blushed from the roots of her hair to her toenails. Was this what Hinata always felt like? Poor girl. “Oh,” she stuttered. “Th-thank you.”

Amused, Tsunade brought a chair. “Sit,” she ordered. “It’s been a while since I got the chance to talk to you, although Naruto keeps me updated.” She looked so fondly exasperated that Sakura grinned. Tsunade and Naruto were quite the interesting pair. “I know you’ve been developing new jutsus to heal and protect, and new ways to store and use power. I think, with your help, I can search the area much more thoroughly.”

Sakura smiled. “I think so too, Hokage-sama.” Cheeks heating, she added, “Kakashi-sensei asked me to map the chakara of the surrounding areas, however, so maybe we should work on that first?” She half-winced, startled at her own audacity.

Tsunade looked pleasantly surprised. “Very well. You’re in charge, Sakura. What do you need me to do?”

Bright red, Sakura fumbled her way along.

~

 _11:09 PM_

“I’ve seen a lot of owls,” Naruto said.

Sasuke stared, exasperated. “That’s it? That’s all you have to report?”

Naruto thought about it for a moment. “I think so. What do you have to report?”

“That there’s evidence that paths were cut through the surrounding forest some time ago, and judging by the shortage of prey animals, someone’s been hunting in the area.” Sasuke’s voice unconsciously slipped into ‘official’ mode -- amused, Naruto leaned back and watched. “There were footprints, adult-size and a fair distance from the homes and hunting grounds of the villagers, plus some old cuts on trees that could be markers.”

“Or maybe just places where animals scratched,” Naruto pointed out, grinning.

Sasuke glared. “If you think this is a joke --”

“No,” Naruto said, humor evaporating. “There’s nothing funny about it. But I haven’t noticed any disturbances or anything.” He shrugged. “Just a lot of owls. Too many.”

Sasuke cocked a silky eyebrow. “They might have left the South-South-west area in favor of the North, if something’s been giving them competition for prey. The warding jutsus surrounding the village would leave them unwilling to venture too far away.”

“Is it just our hunters?”

“They’ve been accounted for.” Sasuke glanced around darkly, sharingan picking out all warm bodies within a few dozen feet. He could see for miles if he tried hard enough, but he wanted to preserve his chakara. And the wound in his stomach was already aching from over-exertion. “The village has been existing alongside these woods for a long time. For the most part, there's balance.”

“So there’s someone nearby who needs to hunt and is using the forest -- Konoha forest -- to do it,” Naruto guessed. Sasuke nodded. “Did you see any traps?”

“None.”

“Me neither.” Naruto worried his bottom lip thoughtfully. “Don’t hunters usually use traps?”

Sasuke gave him a Look. “Do you pay attention to anything, dead last?”

“Hey! Of course I do.”

Sasuke smirked. “Yes, they use traps. It’s difficult to hunt without them, especially in over-hunted areas.”

“Like these?”

Sasuke nodded.

“No traps, and the paths and markers on the trees were old.” Naruto scowled. “It looks like they cleared out.”

“Like they --” Sasuke stopped. “Shit. You’re right. If the defenses around the village scared them off --”

“They could be anywhere,” Naruto said, looking furious. “Stealing kids from some other villages.”

“And taking  _our_  kids with them.” Sasuke glared at a nearby tree. “Have you gotten any word from Kakashi?”

Naruto shook his head silently.

“I’ll take your next patrol. Get into the village and find Sakura -- see if she’s finished with her mapping and bring me a copy.”

“Roger.” Naruto back flipped onto a nearby limb, and paused to ask, “Have you been paying attention to bare spots?”

Sasuke ducked his head so he could see Naruto’s face around a tree branch. “Bare spots?”

“On the ground. Like, where someone was digging?”

Sasuke went very still. “No. Have you?”

“Not really.” Naruto frowned, a line appearing between his eyebrows. “But it’s a good thing to look for, don’t you think?”

“Not a good thing,” Sasuke corrected, scowling. He intensified his  _sharingan_  briefly, ignored the looming headache, and scanned the countryside. Animals and more animals, but no people. No children.

Unfortunately, the  _sharingan_  couldn’t show him cold bodies. Dead bodies.

He scowled and let it fade. “Not a good thing,” he repeated. “A bad thing. But I’ll keep my eyes open.”

Naruto leaned around to look him in the eye. “I think we’ll find them,” he said, and flashed a reckless grin. “Most of them are academy students. With my shining example, they’ll never stop fighting.”

Sasuke glanced at him sideways. “Moron.”

“You know you love me,” Naruto said, flashing a thumbs-up. He pushed off his branch and vanished into the darkness.

Sasuke watched the leaves tremble from his departure and smirked, seemingly lost in thought. And then he continued patrolling.

~

 _11:15 PM_

“It’s right here,” Tsunade said, muffling a yawn.

“Hey,” Naruto said quietly, glancing briefly at the pink head face-down on the desk, and then at the map again with surprise. “It’s glowing.”

“That’s the chakara,” Tsunade explained. She stretched as Naruto bent over the map, staring avidly at the moving dots of light. Snaky lines traced the paths that patrolling ninjas, hunters, and everyone else had taken over the past few months. “We couldn’t find a way to copy the maps, so we used the jutsu on a few different ones.”

Naruto watched one dot circle the glowing mass of the village, like a lone guardian, and smiled. “D’you have a smaller map? There’s Sasuke, by the way.”

Tsunade handed him a rolled up map. “It has a different jutsu than the others,” she explained, and wrapped a piece of ribbon around it. “When you cut this, wrap it around your right hand and make the following seals.” She gestured, drilling Naruto till he had it down perfectly. “Good. It’ll last for about seven hours, give or take.”

Naruto nodded, and side-stepped Tsunade to grab a blanket from a nearby chair. He shook it open and laid it around Sakura, who murmured in her sleep and slipped her arms beneath her head. “Nar’to, ‘anks.”

He patted her shoulder, beaming, and shoved the map in his pocket. As he passed the large map he glanced down again, and tapped the point of light that was Sasuke. “Bright, isn’t he?”

“You’re brighter,” Tsunade said.

He looked surprised, and then he grinned and winked. “I knew that, old lady.” He was out the window before she could do anything but smile.

~

 _11:57 PM_

Two shallow graves. They’d held adult corpses, not children, but it had been chilling to discover them when he was on top of them, to look down and realize that something dead and rotting was only two feet beneath him.

He didn’t think he could wash the memory away, no matter how long he stayed in the shower -- it was too easy to remember his parents’ faces, to think of them decaying in the earth instead. To think of Itachi,  _sharingan_  eyes wide and staring, a gaping wound in his throat. Sasuke had blacked out after he died and didn’t know what happened to his body. He never would.

Shuddering, Sasuke dropped into bed. His hair dripped onto his pillow as he stared out the window, eyes sleepy and vague. The door to his bedroom opened, startling him. “It’s me.”

Sasuke dropped the kunai he’d grabbed. “What are you doing here?”

“I bet you haven’t gotten the bandages on your stomach changed, have you?” Sakura asked. She set the medpack beside him on the bed. “Get on your back.”

He considered arguing but was just too tired. He rolled over, throwing his arm over his eyes to block out the light, and let Sakura have her way.

She cut the bandages and doused a small rag in some stinging liquid, almost fumbling the bottle in her tiredness. Sasuke hissed, stomach tightening, as she dabbed gently at the wound. She’d healed it so that stitches weren't needed, but that was as much as she could do -- Sasuke had such fine control over his body that she could damage his chakara system by healing him too much. She and Naruto were different, of course, but they didn't have bloodline limits. And Naruto never needed much healing.

“Sit up for a moment,” she murmured. Sighing, Sasuke obeyed.

Sakura wrapped the bandages gently, but tightly, blinking away her own exhaustion, and cleaned his shoulder before deciding the bandages could go off. Sasuke stared sleepily at the ceiling until she was finished.

“There,” she said, and stood. The medpack seemed to weigh a ton as she lifted it, hitting every bruise from shoulder to thigh as it came to rest against her hip.

Sasuke was already asleep. Sakura locked the door and teleported to the sidewalk, stumbling and nearly falling in her weariness. It was late and she was tired but she couldn't go home yet -- she was still needed, was somehow always needed. She went to her mother's next.


	3. Chapter 3

**June 16**

 _8:19 AM_

Iruka let himself into Naruto’s house and found it unusually dark and quiet.  _Naruto must be sleeping,_  he thought, and sure enough, Naruto was sprawled on top the blankets, snoring loudly. Iruka shut the blinds and went to work in the kitchen, amused to find decades-old worksheets stuffed in a drawer. He recognized his own handwriting on the corner of the page, paitently asking Naruto to complete his assignments on time, and a rude response from Naruto himself.

When Naruto finally stumbled out half an hour later, drawn by the scent of food, the room was somewhat neater. “Iruka-sensei?”

Iruka glanced up. “You’re awake. How are you feeling?”

“Hungry,” Naruto said, and dropped into a chair. He scooped food from the nearest bowl and dug in. “I didn’t know you could cook,” he commented, between bites.

“I can’t,” Iruka said, grinning. “It’s take-out. Budge over, your other chair’s broken.”

Naruto budged. “What’s up?”

“Wanted to make sure you were okay,” Iruka said honestly, ruffling Naruto’s hair. “You were out all night.”

Naruto tilted his head, grinning impishly. “I’m fine,  _mom._ ”

Iruka jabbed him in the ribs and sent him sprawling onto the floor. "Oh, sorry," he said falsely, and stole some of Naruto's food.

~

 _9:22 AM_

“So we have two shallow graves, with foreign ninja buried in them.” Tsunade planted her hands on her hips, staring out a wide window over the village. “Killed by Hidden Leaf shuriken.”

“Tracking on the shuriken has been unsuccessful,” Kakashi added. Tsunade and Shizune jumped, startled by his abrupt appearance. Sasuke, seated at the long table in the middle of Tsunade’s chambers, barely blinked. “They’re covered in the blood and chakara of those they killed. Sorry I’m late, I got lost.”

The women exchanged glances. “So a ninja killed them.”

“Or a student ninja,” Kakashi added.

“And their friends buried them. Before, apparently, clearing out of the area.” Tsunade sighed.

“We don’t know that,” Sasuke pointed out, still pouring over the enchanted maps. “They might have simply dumped them rather than carry two corpses back to their base.”

“Especially if they have one of our genin on their hands,” Sakura said. She entered the room and sat at Sasuke’s side, skin bleached white with exhaustion. Her hair, dull and uncombed, was pulled back in a plain ponytail.

Sasuke turned from the map and stared at her. “Did you sleep at all?”

“Of course,” she said, surprised. He clearly didn't believe her, but let it go.

Kakashi joined Sasuke and Sakura at the table. The room was filled briefly with the quiet sound of their murmurs until someone in the hallway bellowed, “Old lady Tsunade, you in there?”

“No,” Tsunade shouted back. “Go away.”

Naruto pushed open the door. “Hey, everyone’s here already? Even Kakashi-sensei! Am I that late?”

Kakashi grinned. "Thank you, Naruto."

“No,” Sasuke said. “You’re on time.”

“Jeez, really? I could have sworn I overslept.” He sat next to Sakura, double-taking worriedly. She stuck out her tongue. “Actually, it was Iruka-sensei’s fault.”

“You’re on time,” Tsunade repeated, smiling. She and Shizune sat beside Kakashi and looked down at the map. “So this was a lot of work for nothing.”

“It’ll be useful later,” Sakura said with determined optimism.

“If you could develop a jutsu that anyone can use, instead of just you two,” Sasuke said, pulling out the map that he and Naruto had used last night, “then it would be useful now.”

“True,” Tsunade murmured. Sakura looked weary, but encouraged.

“So we need to find out where the kidnappers went, right?” Naruto said. “The chakara map isn't showing us anything, so I was thinking, why don’t we call Kiba? If he’s on mission, one of us can go in his place, right?” He looked to Tsunade.

“He’s out of touch for now,” she said, rubbing the diamond on her forehead. “I sent him a message, but there’s no way to know if he got it.”

Naruto sighed.

“We can still use Kiba’s techniques even if he’s not here,” Kakashi said thoughtfully. “I can always summon my dogs. Although I’m sure the kidnappers were wise enough to hide their scent.”

“They left their dead behind,” Sasuke said darkly, with a hint of bitter wrath. “They’re not that wise.”

Kakashi blinked. Naruto peered around Sakura so he could see Sasuke’s face. “I don’t get it.”

“Information has been collected off of the bodies,” Tsunade explained. “It’s an independent group, but we don’t know where they’re based, or why they’ve taken an interest in our children.”

“But we have a name,” Sasuke added. “Infiltration is a possibility.”

“A risky possibility,” Shizune said sternly.

“All possibilities are risky,” Sasuke said coolly. He caught her with a dark glare and waited until she looked away.

The silence grew chilly. “Have any another hidden villages come into contact with this group?” Sakura asked cautiously, breaking it. Naruto just looked confused.

“I’ve sent messages, and we might get replies with the day.” Tsunade stood, going to a bookcase and hauling out another, larger map. Everyone pushed their chairs back as it was laid out.

“This is Konoha and the surrounding two hundred miles,” Tsunade explained. She pointed to a dot near the center. “Konoha.” She murmured under her breath a moment, and then added, “This is where the bodies were found.” Shizune handed her a tack and Tsunade marked the spot. She traced a straight line from the tack to the edge of the map. “What’s out there?”

“Oh, gosh.” Sakura wracked her sleep-deprived brain desperately. “A lot of unmapped forest, I think . . . .”

“Farmers,” Kakashi said. “Abandoned homes.”

“Roads?” Naruto guessed. “Trees, bushes, grass?”

“‘Roads’ was good,” Tsunade said encouragingly. “The rest, not so much.”

“Caves,” Sasuke murmured, staring intently at the map. “A small chain of large hills, rock quarries. An abandoned mine shaft.”

“Good,” Kakashi said softly. Everyone stared at Sasuke.

“There’s a large farm owned by a corporation,” Sasuke said. He sighed a little and came out of his trance. “That’s all I remember. Neji --”

“Mission.”

“Hinata?” Naruto offered.

“Mission.”

Both boys looked exasperated. “Their family?”

“Other than the young and the old ones? Missions. Or out of town on vacations.”

“Jeez,” Naruto muttered. “What d’ya do, send every ninja with a special talent out before the kidnappings started?”

“Except for you three, yes.” Tsunade shrugged. “People request them and pay more for them. They like missions. It seemed like a good idea.”

Sakura lifted her head from her hands, blinking. “Do we know how valid those mission requests are? Were they lured away, maybe?”

Tsunade’s eyebrows shot up. “Good point. Kakashi?”

He shrugged. Shizune made a ‘search me’ face when everyone looked at her.

“We’ll have to look into that,” Tsunade said. “And until then . . . .” She glanced at the assembled ninjas, evaluating them one by one. “Kakashi and Shizune, guard the city as Naruto and Sasuke were. Sakura?” She put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but get some sleep. And then when you’ve rested, you three --” she made a little circle-gesture, indicating the youngest members of the group “-- follow that straight line.” She pointed at the map.

There was a moment of silence.

“Two hundred miles? That’s gonna take a while, old lady.”

“No engaging the enemy, only reconnaissance. If it looks like the area has been untouched, then come back. If you’re repeatedly attacked, come back. I expect you to search the area both thoroughly and quickly. If you don’t return in two days, then Kakashi, Shizune, and I are coming after you.” Tsunade smiled thinly. “And that won’t be fun for anyone.”

“Yeah,” Naruto said, grinning. “You might be old, but you can still kick some major ass.”

She returned his grin cockily. “Thank you.” She thought about it. “I think.”

Kakashi stood. “I’ll start my patrols,” he said, and vanished. Tsunade looked mildly put out by his abruptness.

“He gets like that sometimes,” Sakura said. To the boys, she added, “We leave in five hours.”

“Eight,” Sasuke said.

“Ten,” Naruto argued. “You need, like, a lot of sleep, Sakura-chan.”

She glared at them.

“Ten,” Sasuke agreed.

She crossed her arms over her chest.

There was a moment of silence as Sasuke returned to inspecting the map and Naruto bounced his heel off the table leg noisily. Tsunade finally kicked him to make him stop.

Sasuke glanced at Sakura. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

She sighed and vanished.

“Ten hours,” Tsunade said, smiling. “You boys take a break for a little while.”

Sasuke nodded, standing. “Can I borrow this map?”

She shrugged.  _Doesn’t sound like much of a break to me._  “Sure.” He gathered up the map and disappeared.

“Jeez, everyone can teleport but me,” Naruto complained, going to the window. “See you later, granny.”

“One of these days I’m going to  _throw_  you out that window,” Tsunade threatened. Shizune hid her smile.

“I’ll bounce.” Naruto said, and waved. “Bye!” And he jumped.

~

 _1:19 PM_

“This is useless.” Panting, Sakura landed near Sasuke, leaning against the tree trunk. Wisps of pink fought their way free of her headband, clinging to her cheeks. “I haven’t seen anything, Sasuke.”

“Neither have I.” In direct contrast to Sakura’s sweaty exhaustion, he wasn’t even breathing hard. “We’ll wait till Naruto gets back.”

Sakura sank down, leaning against the tree. “When did it get so hot?” she complained. Sasuke didn’t answer. “I feel like I’m going to suffocate. And you, you don’t even seem to notice.”

He glanced down and realized she was teasing him. “Naruto’s on his way,” he answered vaugely, and smirked. “He’s noticed the heat.”

Naruto landed beside Sasuke with a shout. “I AM DYING.”

Sakura started giggling. Naruto’s jump suit was drenched in sweat and his face was bright red. He snatched Sasuke’s water bottle and downed it in a gulp, panting furiously, while Sasuke looked contemptous.

“Naruto, what did you do, go running around the place?” Sakura chided. He looked sheepish. “Didn’t you pay attention when Iruka-sensei taught us about conserving energy in the heat?”

“Um, let me think.” Naruto glared up at Sasuke, who was smirking and leaning casually against their tree. “ _No. No I didn’t._ ”

Sasuke snorted. “Of course not, dead last. Who expect you to pay attention? There’s a stream down there.” He pointed. “It should be cooled by the runoff of the mountain.”

Naruto vanished so quick Sakura thought he’d found a way to teleport at last. And then she blinked and sighed happily as the wind from his departure swept over her.

A wild yell echoed through the forest, followed by a noisy splash. Sakura giggled madly as Sasuke looked pained. “That moron.”

~

 **June 17**

 _10:43 AM_

“Dead end.” Kakashi scanned the street with both eyes, ignoring the stares. Iruka sighed. “Back to the drawing board.”

“They found nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Shit.” Iruka patted him on the shoulder, somehow sensing that he was bothered, and in true Iruka-fashion, moving automatically to comfort. “I need to get to the school. Tell Naruto I said hi.”

“I won’t be seeing him today,” Kakashi said. When Iruka looked totally taken back, he added, “I’ll pass it on to Hokage-sama.”

“Thanks.” Iruka vanished into the crowd.

Kakashi hid his  _sharingan_  and continued his patrol. A vise was clamping around the city; his senses told him it was time for another kidnaping. Hopefully, he could prevent it this time, the tears and the anguish and the eventual grief.

Maybe just this once. He hadn’t been successful yet . . . .

~

 _10:52 AM_

“You’re on your way out?”

Sakura turned with a smile for her mother’s oldest friend. “I need to report to Hokage-sama,” she said. “Find out if I have any new orders.”

“You’re a good girl,” the elderly woman said. She bent down carefully to pick up a blanket, folding it and laying it over the couch. “A real good girl. Miryo’s lucky to have you around, you know.”

“Thank you, Aunt Bara.” Sakura gave the woman a quick hug. “Will you find a way to reach me if she gets worse?”

“Of course, sweetheart. Now you go out there and help those little children.” Bara shook her head disapprovingly, lips pursed. “They must be so afraid.”

Sakura forced a smile. “I know. I’ll see you.”

“Go on, you. And good luck.”

Another smile, for appearances sake. Sakura wanted to go to her small flat and cry, but she had business now. And then more time with her mother. And then more business.

 _Later,_  she told herself firmly.  _There will be more time later. Now, be patient._

That was when she heard the screaming.

~

 _11:01 AM_

“How could this happen, he was at the  _ninja academy --_ ”

“I know, ma’am, please calm down --”

“You want me to  _calm down?!_ ”

Sakura winced and dodged the hysterical mother, navigating the riotous halls of her old school easily. She found a group of ninjas surrounding a classroom, interrogating a stressed Iruka. She pushed her way through the crowd, noting who was chuunin and who was jounin, before placing herself between Iruka and the ninjas. “Are any of you authorized to be here by Hokage-sama?” she demanded.

Silence. “A child is missing!” someone said. “From right beneath our noses!”

“Are any of you authorized?” Sakura repeated.

More silence.

“Then get out,” she ordered. Her eyes flashed with a hint of icy command. “Now.”

No one questioned her, thankfully. She pushed Iruka back into his classroom and was startled to see it full of children, most of them panicked.

“He was kidnapped from here?” she asked.

“In the middle of class --” Iruka was sweating, somewhere between fear and anger. “One minute he was there, the next --”

Someone started pounding on the door. “Make them go away,” Sakura ordered. She brought her hands together in a seal and blocked out the noise, the tears, the sound of Iruka arguing with someone. She focused.

There! Faint traces of chakara -- an adult had definitely been in the room. And -- Neji? No. But --

She opened her eyes. A young boy was standing in front of her, eight at the most. His eyes were big and pure white.

Sakura bent forward, resting her hands on her thighs. “Hello there,” she said warmly, trying to seem unafraid. Something like bandages were wrapped around his forehead -- Sakura recognized them as a way of hiding the seal that marked him as part of the Hyuuga Branch House.  _I didn’t think that Neji had any siblings . . . and isn't Neji's father dead? They must be cousins, I guess._  “Can you tell me what you’ve seen, little one?”

“A man came through the wall,” he said. He rubbed his cheeks, already stained red with tears, and added, “He came through the wall and grabbed Hogo. Hogo . . . he went to sleep, I think, and they disappeared.”

 _He went to sleep._  Unconscious.  _Disappeared?_  Teleport.  _But what about the shields?_  She could still feel them, humming at the edges of her mind, tickling her chakara and distracting her endlessly. Sasuke had complained of sleeplessness and Naruto dreamed of foxes and stolen kits.

“Which wall did he come through?” Sakura asked, keeping her voice calm, if not cheerful.

The little boy pointed. There was a window on that wall, closed tightly and locked against any possible intruders. She squinted and saw a locking jutsu wrapped around the chain, clearly Iruka’s work.  _He tried to keep them safe. He tried . . . ._

She patted the boy’s shoulder. “Thank you. You’ve been a very big help. Now, listen to me.” She knelt and took his hands in hers. “If you remember anything, or you see anything else suspicious, you go straight to the Hokage. If you can’t get to her, you come to Iruka-sensei and tell him to find me, Sasuke, or Naruto. Okay?”

He nodded, chubby chin quivering. “Is Hogo gonna be okay?”

She smiled brightly. “I’ll make sure of it,” she promised. “Now have a seat. And thank you for helping.”

His little hands slipped from hers and he went back to his desk. A crowd of children gathered around him, babbling anxiously.

“They’ll have nightmares.”

Sakura turned and met Kakashi’s eyes squarely. “Did you hear what he said?”

“The Hyuuga boy? No.”

“He saw ‘a man’ come through the wall, pick Hogo -- the kidnapped child -- up. He said that Hogo ‘fell asleep’, and they disappeared.”

Kakashi’s eyebrows drew sharply together. “Through the  _wall? Disappeared?_ ” He stared past her,  _sharingan_  whirling. “There are only traces left. What the hell?”

“I have no idea.” She slid past him to go to Iruka’s side -- he was rubbing his temples and looking sick. “Are you all right?”

He gave her a Look.

She told him what she’d been told. When she finished, he could only stare at her, dazed. “There wasn’t anything you could have done,” she said firmly, rubbing his shoulder and wondering where Naruto was. He could help Iruka more than she could. “There wasn't anything that any of us could have done.”

Behind her, she heard Kakashi mutter, “Through the  _wall_. Which wall, Sakura?” She pointed. “So he walked through the village but teleported out. And he wasn’t as invisible as he thought.”

“No,” Sakura agreed. “But pretty close. No one else saw him, and the traces have vanished. It’s like no one was ever here.”

“Including Hogo,” Iruka murmured. She looked at him but his eyes were distant, grim, with a heavy weight of guilt.

She sighed. She’d find Naruto. And report to the Hokage. And make sure to talk to the Hyuuga boy’s parents so they would pass on anything else that he remembered. And between and after and during it all, there would be even less rest.

 _Later. There’s always later._  She sighed and rubbed her forehead.  _Always later. Reserved just for me._

Kakashi touched her shoulder. “We need to report to Hokage-sama.”

“And we need to find Sasuke and Naruto.”

They left together.

~

 _1:45 PM_

“Nine children,” Tsunade growled. “Nine children, and our best ninjas are on the case.”

Shizune sighed. “It’s not your fault.”

“Oh, I know that.” Tsunade set down a stack of papers with barely contained rage. “I’m just wondering who -- who the  _hell_  -- has the guts to do this and try to get away with it? Don’t they realize that I’ll rip them to pieces?”

“We’ll find them,” Shizune promised, recognizing the bluster for what it was. “We will.”

Tsunade nodded silently. The door opened, forestalling further conversation -- Kakashi held it open for Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto, all three of them unusually silent. Even Naruto showed signs of stress.

“Have a seat,” Tsunade offered. They sat.

“So they have a way to be invisible?” Naruto asked. “Isn’t that hard?”

Everyone looked at Sakura. She shrugged. “I’ve never heard of anyone managing to do it before. They might have invented their own ninjutsu . . . .”

“I thought you were the only one who could do that,” Naruto said, discouraged. Sakura just smiled bitterly.

Tsunade inspected her face carefully. She seemed worried, but more than that, she seemed terribly tired. The girl -- the young woman -- needed a vacation, especially considering the energy it took to keep up with her teammates.

Sasuke also looked tired, but there was an odd tightness around his eyes. He seemed more grim than usual, not that he was ever really cheerful.

Naruto looked concerned, but determined. At least he was acting normally. Who would have guessed that the hyperactive, rebellious, stubborn brat would be the most dependable member of his team? No matter what happened, he was always somewhere between concerned and determined.

And Kakashi . . . well, it took more than the powers of a Hokage to read Kakashi’s expressions, especially with that damn mask he always wore. The only emotions anyone saw were the ones he wanted them to see.

“How is the boy’s family?” Shizune asked softly. “Hogo? I haven’t had a chance to speak with them . . . .”

“Just his mother and younger brother,” Kakashi said. “His father was killed a few years ago during the violence with Orochimaru.”

“They’re all right?”

“His mother is frightened.” Kakashi shrugged, expression darkening. “His brother doesn’t seem to understand. He thinks Hogo is on a trip and keeps asking when he’ll get back.”

“How sad,” Sakura whispered.

“But he’s all right?” Shizune pressed, a line appearing between her eyebrows. “Not panicked or angry?”

“Of course he’s all right,” Sasuke said quietly. “He won’t understand until he’s older.”

 _And then he’ll be afraid,_  Tsunade thought tiredly.  _Or angry. He’ll spend his life jumping at shadows and vowing revenge, just like you did. And maybe he’ll make the same mistakes and we’ll have two grim young men without brothers, without happiness . . . ._

“We should check the shields surrounding the village,” Sasuke said abruptly, leaning back in his chair. He seemed to know what Tsunade was thinking -- his dark eyes blazed as if he dared her to pity him. “See if they’ve been tampered with. There may be someone on the inside helping this organization. What’s it called, anyway?”

“Hikage-Ibuki,” Shizune said, grimacing. “ ‘Shadow-Breath’. Very unoriginal. Very melodramatic.”

“Sakura and Kakashi, you two check the shields along the Eastern half of the village,” Tsunade ordered. “Naruto, you and Sasuke check the Western half. Be careful. If you see anything, one of you stays behind and keeps people out of the area, and the other comes and gets me. Understood?” They nodded. “I’ll see you later.”

Sakura and Kakashi teleported out. Sasuke and Naruto went through the front door, already bickering over where to start their search.

~

2:23 PM

“There, can you see that?”

Kakashi pushed up his head protector, eyes narrowed. “I can’t see it. What am I looking at?”

“This is where Hokage-sama used the warding ninjutsu.” Sakura sketched the marks over the faint chakara with a finger. “Here -- and here -- is where the shields begin.”

Kakashi’s  _sharingan_  spun. “I see.”

“And here --” Sakura pointed “-- is where someone walked through the shield.”

“Through it.” Sakura nodded. “I thought that was supposed to be impossible.”

“It was. It is. They must have been immensely powerful -- you can see where the seals have been strained almost to breaking.” Kakashi blinked. “Well, I can see it. Hokage-sama herself couldn’t have done it.  _Naruto_  couldn’t do something like this, even if he tapped the fox.”

Kakashi sighed and pushed his headplate back down. “So you were right?”

Sakura blinked. “Huh?”

“About our enemy. We have another Orochimaru on our hands.”

Sakura’s stomach clenched. She took a deep breath, willing away the memory of Sasuke under the influence of his curse seal, of Naruto battered and bruised and nearly broken. Orochimaru had made it his personal mission to destroy the three of them, and Kakashi too, and he'd very nearly succeeded.

“Although maybe not,” Kakashi added, perhaps sensing that she was frightened. “It’s too soon to tell. I’m going to go get Hokage-sama -- stay right here.”

Sakura nodded. Kakashi disappeared. When he returned with Tsunade in tow, Sakura had already chased several stall owners and pedestrians away. She spent a few minutes explaining the seals to Tsunade as Kakashi finished clearing the area.

Finally exasperated, Tsunade held out her hands. Sakura blinked. “Hokage-sama?”

“I have no idea of what you’re saying,” Tsunade admitted, smiling tightly. “Use my strength and try to look deeper into the seal for clues. And fix it, if you can.”

Blushing, Sakura nodded. “O-okay.” She took both of Tsunade’s small hands into one of her own, noting absently that no matter how good her illusions were, her skin was that of an older woman.

She sat, tugging Tsunade down with her, and put one foot on the seal, knowing exactly how odd she looked. With her free hand, she gathered her chakara and tugged some of Tsunade’s bottomless stamina into her body, transforming that as well.

She sent the chakara through her leg and into the seal. Her eyes opened, unseeing in their intensity, as she moved her foot and stared down at the marks. They were glowing so brightly that Tsunade turned her face aside, blinking away bright spots of light.

“Ah,” Sakura murmured. She sent her concentration into a thin, twisted line, drawing more chakara with her free hand.

Here was where the seal had cracked.  _What kind of person walked through this?_  she wondered, trembling. Such strength . . . even Naruto at his worst couldn’t compare. And beneath it was a clear thread of evil, so black and bloody that she refused to let her chakara anywhere near it. Someone very, very wicked had stolen Hogo from Iruka’s classroom.

Sakura started to withdraw slowly, careful not to brush the weakened seal too much. Her eyes closed briefly, and reopened. She could hear Kakashi arguing with someone in the distance, trying to convince them to close their stall and go home for a few hours.

“Did you repair it?” Tsunade asked.

Sakura paused mid-yawn. “Oh, I forgot.” She dove back in, adding Tsunade’s strength to her own. Suddenly she stopped.

From far off she heard Tsunade’s voice. “Kakashi? What -- ?”

His voice was urgent, and she knew without looking that he had his sharingan uncovered. “Sakura!”

“I see it,” she snapped. “Shit. A trap!”

Everything exploded.

~

 _2:23 PM_

“It looks like everything’s fine,” Sasuke said, closing his eyes and getting rid of his sharingan.

“I wonder if Sakura-chan found anything?” Naruto asked, bouncing impatiently on his heels. “Jeez, this is taking forever.”

Sasuke gave him a cool, annoyed look. “Well, if you have somewhere better to be --”

Naruto rolled his eyes. “I need to talk to Iruka-sensei,” he said. “Chill.” Sasuke shrugged stiffly, scanning the area for any clues he might have overlooked. “You’ve been jumping all over my case lately, you know?”

“I have not,” Sasuke muttered.

“Have to! Just before you got sliced up by shuriken, Mr. Jounin-I’m-Better-Than-You, you said it was my fault we were ambushed!” Naruto sounded like he’d been bottling his anger for a while. “And then, after the council meeting, you yelled at me for admitting we looked at the scrolls and said it was my fault that Ito guy was such an ass!”

Sasuke’s head flew up. “I did not.”

“Well, no,” Naruto admitted. “But you could tell that’s what you were thinking.”

“It was not what I was thinking,” Sasuke muttered through gritted teeth.

“Really? Then what was it, huh?” Naruto crossed his arms, quite determined to be obnoxious. He really did find the worst times to pick fights.

“Later,” Sasuke said firmly. “We’ve got a --”

“We haven’t found anything and we’ve been searching for an hour,” Naruto said. “There’s nothing on this side of town. Come on, tell me. Unless you’re afraid you’ll make me mad.” His eyes gleamed with challenge. “Unless you’re afraid of me, Mr. I --”

“Fine!” Naruto looked startled. “Ito’s family is a branch of the Uchiha clan. After Itach -- after my paren -- his brother tried to take me in when I was nine and I set his house on fire.” Naruto’s jaw nearly hit the ground. “They hate me.”

“So . . . .” Naruto blinked. “Wait. You’re a pyromaniac?”

Sasuke stared at him, then rolled his eyes. “Katons, idiot. Specifically, housenka no jutsu.”

“Oh, right. Your family’s specialty -- fire element ninjutsu.” Naruto scratched the back of his head, looking embarrassed. “I forgot. But what does that have to do with him hating me?”

Sasuke shut his mouth tightly and glared out over the city. Naruto canted his head to the left, puzzled. “Sasuke?”

“Naruto . . .” Sasuke started, voice unusually pensive -- and then stopped. A loud boom! sounded in the distance and his eyes widened, flashing crimson.

Naruto nearly fell as the ground shook. “What?! What was that?”

“Goddammit! Sakura!”

“What? Where -- ?”

“The east plaza!” Sasuke vanished.

“Everyone can teleport but me!” Naruto bellowed angrily and entirely to himself. He hopped onto the nearest roof and crouched, gathering chakara in his feet until it hurt --

\-- and then he jumped, higher and higher and higher, until he could see the entire village. As he somersaulted, aiming towards the east plaza, he noticed the rising cloud of dust.

“Shit . . .” he muttered, spreading his arms and an invisible layer of chakara to slow his fall. A shock wave traveled across the ground with impossible slowness, flattening every building it hit. And it was going towards --

“The school!”

Swearing violently, he brought his hands together in a very familiar seal. Shadow clones rained from the sky, surrounding the shock wave and linking their arms together. When the clones started to evaporate, destroyed by the force of the wave, Naruto used the jutsu again, already sweating. There were so many copies of himself that it was dizzying to watch, but they managed to trap the wave until it dissipated.

Still falling, although very slowly, Naruto noticed a black clad figure in the very middle of the mess, bending over someone.

“Sakura-chan,” he whispered. He arrowed towards the ground, cushioning himself just enough to keep from shattering his ankles, and landed.

“Sasuke!”

Sasuke lifted the unconscious girl as Tsunade and Kakashi stood, coughing. Naruto darted forward to help. “What happened?!”

“How the hell am I supposed to know?” Sasuke snapped. He kicked some debris aside and set Sakura down.

“Is she all right?” Naruto didn’t wait for an answer, throwing himself down beside her and feeling for a pulse. She coughed before he found it and sat up, covering her mouth and gagging.

“Sakura-chan? Sakura-chan!” Naruto held onto her shoulders, Sasuke beside him and resting his fingertips against her back. She hacked and dry-heaved a moment longer before sinking against Naruto's knees. He hugged her.

“Ow,” she muttered weakly.

“What happened?” Naruto demanded. He looked from Sakura to Tsunade to Kakashi and back again. “What’s going on? Did someone attack you? Where are they? And the shock wave -- everything’s all destroyed --”

 _“Everything?!”_  Tsunade shouted.

“A lot,” Naruto said grimly.  _“WHAT HAPPENED?”_

“A trap,” Sakura said hoarsely. “A trap on the seal.” She lifted watery eyes, staring at the ruined buildings around them. “Oh, my god.”

A small group was gathering in the street, bloodstained and shocked, standing around what looked like an unconscious child. Tsunade ran over without another word, taking charge and healing everyone she could reach. Sakura struggled as if she wanted to join her, but Naruto and Sasuke stopped her.

“No, you’re hurt.” Naruto checked her over quickly and impersonally. “You’re not bleeding. Why were you coughing?”

“Not -- physical,” Sakura said still fighting to stand. “It was -- mental. The evil -- the evil in the seal --”

Sasuke froze, suddenly wide-eyed and intense. “Evil?”

“There was a thread of -- of evil, or darkness, or something, in the seal and when the trap went -- it like -- it --” She shuddered and covered her mouth. “It --”

A large hand rested on her shoulder. “Calm down.” Kakashi nudged Naruto aside and sat, cross-legged, beside Sakura. “Breathe.”

Shivering, on the verge of tears, Sakura nodded and gasped deeply. “Okay. Okay. I’m breathing. I'm calm. God, what did I do? Okay.”

Exchanging glance, Naruto and Sasuke stood to the side and watched. Kakashi closed his eyes as Sakura cried quietly, his hands glowing with chakara, hers clenched into fists. When he finally looked up again, she slumped. “She needs to rest,” he said. “I’ll take her to the hospital. Start helping --” he gestured to the village.

Naruto thumped Sasuke on the shoulder, already heading towards the flattened buildings. “Let’s go.”

Sasuke followed obediantly for once, glancing back to make sure Sakura and Kakashi were all right. As he watched, Kakashi disappeared with Sakura in his arms. **  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Hikage-Ibuki'. In addition to being unoriginal and melodramatc, it's probably bad Japanese! I'm sorry. If anyone wants to bop me upside the head with a better name, feel free.


	4. Chapter 4

**June 19**

 _7:14 AM_

From a distance, the village was both busy and broken at once: people hurried to clear rubble and salvage possessions, filled the streets to their brims. Business was conducted normally, although fearfully.

But there were no children. Sometimes Sakura caught glimpses of them with her keen ninja senses, peeking out windows and around doors, but they were always brief. It was early in the morning but a feeling of deep night clung to everything -- Sakura rubbed her arms and felt goosebumps ripple over her skin.

“Another kidnapping,” Naruto said, dropping from somewhere to land in front of Sakura's' tree. His eyes were tired as he flopped to the ground.

“Another?” Sakura and Sasuke exchanged glances before joining him. “Who was it? How?”

Naruto sighed, searching through his pockets for a bit of paper. He handed it up to Sakura. She smoothed it carefully and read the name aloud. “Meiyo Hyuuga.” She paused and closed her eyes tightly, re-crumpling the paper in her fist. “The little boy? Hogo’s friend?”

Naruto’s voice was muffled by the arm he had thrown over his face. “Yeah.”

She sank slowly to sit on the ground beside him. Sasuke stood over them both, peering away at the distant village. They were silent for a long time, and quite still.

Slowly, Sasuke sat, head bowed. Sakura glanced at him briefly, curiously, before asking Naruto, “Did you get much sleep last night?”

He shook his head silently.

“Did you find Iruka-sensei?”

He nodded and pulled his arm away. It was strange to see Naruto so tired. “Slept over at his house. He’s helping with all that --” he waved at the distant village “-- right now.”

“Well, that’s good.” Naruto’s expression turned stormy. “Isn’t it? It’ll make him feel better if he can help . . . it’s not his fault that Hogo was kidnapped . . . .”

Naruto shrugged. “I dunno. He doesn’t seem like himself. I dunno what to do.” he sighed and pushed himself up, glancing over at Sasuke. “We gonna go patrol or what?”

Sasuke dropped the grass he’d been fiddling with. “We’re going,” he said and straightened, dusting off his hands. “We’ll meet up in the hospital later.”

“Wait.” Sakura scrambled to her feet so that they wouldn’t tower over her. “Naruto. When was Meiyo kidnapped? What time? Were we patrolling? None of my traps were sprung . . . .”

Naruto shrugged again. “It was in the middle of the night, I think.” He pushed his hand through his hair, ruffling it and yawning. “Someone -- his sister, Hanabi, I think -- said she heard him arguing with someone and agreeing to go with them.”

Sakura stared at him in horror. “Why would he do that?”

“I dunno. Tsunade was still talking to the sister when I left.” Sasuke had already started on his patrol -- Naruto back-flipped into a tree and added, looking down at Sakura, “I’ll take your patrol if you wanna go talk to Tsunade and find out.”

She smiled slightly, troubled, and shook her head. “No, I’ll talk to her later. Thanks, though.”

~

 _10:23 PM_

Sasuke entered Tsunade’s chambers as he always did -- without warning, without greeting, quiet and darkly grim. Tsunade was already waiting for him at a long table covered in maps and papers.

“Sit,” she ordered, gesturing.

He tended to obey her more when there weren’t any other people around. He sat without argument, linking his hands and resting them in front of his mouth.

“Your report?”

“Nothing,” he said flatly. “Don’t say you’re surprised. If we’d found anything, Naruto would have told you by now.”

“Is that it, then?” Tsunade wondered. Sasuke narrowed his eyes at her. “Is that why you dislike me so much? Because I’ve chosen Naruto as my pupil?”

He looked away and scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not stupid enough to dislike you, Hokage-sama.” He pushed himself away from the table and stood. “If that’s all --”

“It has nothing to do with stupidity,” she said sharply. Her eyes were wide and intense, boring into his shuttered profile. He was so much like Itachi! Could he even see the resemblance? Did the knowledge torment him? “Why?”

His lips pulled back in a snarl. “I don’t have to tell you why I dislike you,” he snapped. “Stay out of my business, you old hag.”

It wasn’t Naruto’s endearing nickname -- or rather, it was, but uttered so hatefully that Tsunade flinched. She stood before he could reach the door, slamming her fist into the table so hard it cracked. He stopped.

“Why?” she demanded. “Tell me why -- now!”

He glanced over his shoulder at the cracked table. “Or what?”

She didn’t bother to answer the question and they glared off in silence. Sasuke was the one to look away, towards the door. “I’m not going to tell you anything,” he said coolly. He didn’t leave, though.

“You will,” she ordered. Unable to fight away a slight smirk, she added, “Or I’ll ask Naruto to find out for me.”

He scoffed. “You would.” They both knew how relentless Naruto could be.

“So?” Composure regained, she propped one hand on her hip and waited.

“You should have guessed why by now,” he said. She could see the tension in his shoulders, his back. “You failed them!”

She froze. “I failed who?”

“You know who!” He whirled and faced her at last, his eyes blazing with rage. “Your brother -- your lover -- the ones who you loved that died! How dare you fail to avenge them?”

She stared at him in equal parts shock and fury. He cut sharply at the air with his hand, as if to silence any defense she might offer. “Why should I respect you when you failed them? I don’t understand you. I only obey you because you’re Hokage. I don’t respect you at all -- hell, I can barely tolerate you.”

He turned to leave once again. Tsunade forced the words, “Running away?” past her lips, stiff with anger and hurt. She had thought that they understood each other -- that they had pain in common, some unspoken kind of understanding -- not unspoken hate. Sasuke was so  _complicated_. She was quite certain that no one in the world could understand him even a little. She most definitely didn't.

“You killed Itachi,” she added, and he stopped. “Did it give you anything? Any satisfaction, any peace, any happiness?” Nothing. “Did it bring them back?”

Silence.

 _“Did it?”_

“You know it didn’t,” he hissed.

“Someone offered to bring them back once,” Tsunade said. Her voice, usually bold and powerful, crumpled with pain. Startled, Sasuke turned to gaze at her with wide eyes. “I chose to honor their dreams instead of my anger. And I still do.”

He looked away.

“There is more to life than living for the dead,” Tsunade continued. She sat, eyeing the shattered table, and wondered what she would tell Shizune later. “There is more to life than revenge. But you’ve never discovered that, have you?”

She looked at him closely as he stared at the floor, apparently lost in thought. She’d seen him grow from a turmoiled, genius thirteen-year-old into a melancholy, unambitious eighteen-year-old -- she’d seen him weep over the body of a friend nearly killed on his behalf, and she’d seen him attack his brother’s dead body, screaming curses of rage. She knew him as well as she knew Naruto or Sakura, if not better. They did, indeed, have pain in common, whether he chose to acknowledge it or not.

“You’re so young,” she said softly. His eyes flickered slightly. “You’ve already given up. You only fight for the village because you want to help those who would die to protect you. Am I right?”

He didn’t answer. His eyes had lost their intensity and were just vague, drifting. Tsunade had seen eyes like that before, on those driven mad by Itachi’s sharingan.

“Am I right?” she demanded again.

He moved his lips in a silent reply. She couldn’t tell what it was.

“You need to find something worth living for, Sasuke Uchiha.” He yanked his head up to stare at her, surprised to hear his full name, surprised at the gentleness in her voice. “Have you ever stopped grieving for them?”

Sasuke turned suddenly for the door. “I don’t want to talk to you, hag,” he snapped. “Next time, let Naruto report. You’d rather talk to him anyway.”

The door closed behind him with a snap. Tsunade sighed, sinking back into her chair. She didn’t know anything she hadn’t known before -- except that Sasuke’s rage and hatred went deeper than she’d imagined. And that even she didn’t stand a chance of reaching him.

She put her head in her hands. Had Sasuke ever been willing to die for anything other than revenge? To throw himself in front of someone and protect them, sacrifice his pride and his happiness to leave them pleased?

She didn’t know. But as she thought about it . . . Naruto might.

~

 _11:12 PM_

The three friends were silent as they walked through the deserted street, Naruto and Sakura flanking Sasuke. His head was bowed as he walked, the vulnerable nape of his neck exposed.

“Have you guys talked to Kakashi-sensei lately?” Naruto asked.

“No,” Sasuke said.

“Me either,” Sakura admitted. “I wonder where he is? He’s odd sometimes.”

Naruto kicked a pebble and watched it dance it’s way away. “Only sometimes?”

“I think he’s lonely,” Sakura said. “He has a lot of acquaintances but it doesn’t seem like he has any close friends.”

“He shouldn’t disappear so often, then,” Sasuke muttered unforgivingly. “Besides, all his friends are dead. He told me so himself.”

Sakura gripped the necklace she wore, taking in a tiny bit of chakara to energize herself. She still had to visit her mother tonight. “ _We're_  not dead. But that’s sad, about his friends.”

“That’s what Iruka-sensei said,” Naruto said. “Not that it’s sad, but that they’re all dead. He said it was a long time ago when Kakashi was our age.” He yawned, stretching his arms over his head. “Sasuke, can I crash at your place? I don’t wanna walk home.”

Sasuke shrugged. “Sure,” he said, unusually quiet.

“I’ll just go this way,” Sakura said, dropping her necklace and starting towards her mother’s. “I’ll see you guys in the morning.” She started to wave and then realized that they were both staring at her.

She blinked. “What’s wrong?”

“Um . . . .” Naruto fidgeted. “Um, Sakura-chan, where have you been going off to lately?”

Sakura’s eyebrows rose. “Where do you  _think_  I’ve been going off to?”

Naruto turned a brilliant shade of red. “Ummmm . . . .” Sasuke glanced at him from the corner of his eye, smirking.

“Well, you’re wrong,” Sakura said, rolling her eyes. “I have something I need to take care of. I’ll probably sleep over, too.” She knew better than to give them even a shred of evidence -- they were just too smart.

Sasuke nodded once, watching her intently. “See you.”

~

 _11:48 PM_

Sasuke hesitated in the doorway, staring down at Naruto. He was sprawled on top of the covers, hugging a pillow to his chest and muttering in his sleep. Sasuke listened, but the soft murmurs just sounded like the quiet barks of a fox. Which he found quite disturbing, if he was honest with himself.

It was strange to think of how much Naruto and the demon fox shared. Sasuke had been face-to-face with it more than any other human being -- he’d seen it when Naruto was fighting Orochimaru, when Naruto was fighting Kabuto, when Naruto was fighting assassins sent to kill Tsunade. Sasuke had come from each meeting with the sense he’d kept his life through the grace of evil, that the demon fox didn’t kill him simply because it didn’t want to.

He knew that the fox saw everything that happened, bound inside Naruto’s body, and that Naruto could talk to it. He’d overheard one such conversation, a year after Naruto’s promotion to chuunin, when Sasuke was still a genin.

He knew that Naruto could borrow the fox’s chakara if he wished. And he knew that every day was a battle for his friend. The seals on his body had been weakened over time -- Tsunade had spoken the truth when she said that Naruto controlled the fox with a combination of determination and skill.

Tsunade. Sasuke grimaced.

He hated her.  _Hated_  her. The only ones he’d ever hated more were his enemies, Itachi and Orochimaru and all of their minions. Tsunade, though. Tsunade was worse than a murderer. How could she fail them, those people that she said she loved?

Eyes unseeing, Sasuke crossed the floor and tucked himself between the nightstand and the bed, as he always did. When he was a child, he used to hide away in the same manner, determined to be a proud ninja and not ask for help, but still too afraid to be by himself. He’d learned early on not to bother Itachi.

They -- his parents -- had been his entire world; brave and gentle and loving and . . . . He’d avenged them; even after all the trouble it had caused, he couldn’t imagine having done otherwise. The pain inside of him had refused anything less than Itachi’s cold, dead body, even if the heart inside of him had quailed away from the sight, had railed and screamed at him for killing his own kin. Itachi had been evil and he’d done everything in his power to make Sasuke’s life hell, but they’d been brothers once.

And it had taken him so long to understand, to see . . . . All the time that he spent training, he didn't get it, working away at some distant goal he didn't really understand. It wasn't until he'd finally gotten Itachi's attention, the approval and recognition he couldn't help but want, when the battles between them were heating up and Sasuke could feel the day of inevitability coming closer and closer . . . . It was until then that the truth sank in, and then one day it hit him in a wave -- Itachi was his sibling, his brother, and Sasuke was going to kill him. Murder him. Make him dead. End his life and put him in the ground, till his flesh wore away and bone and guts wore away and there was nothing left. Kill him.

The truth -- that huge, immense, unspeakable truth -- hit him like a physical thing, the enormity of it, the hopelessness, the violence. He'd trembled and nearly wept and eventually threw up, gagging and retching and almost screaming. And then he'd killed Itachi anyway, remorselessly, the way he'd been taught.

He sighed. Was this what people meant when they said revenge never brought satisfaction? The pain hadn’t gone away. Now, it just ate away at his soul, steadily corrosive and blistering, like acid.

 _Find something worth living for._

Sasuke closed his eyes tightly, brow furrowing. He couldn’t think of anything worth this sort of agony -- other than the few obligations he bore to Chouji, Neji, Kiba, Lee, Shikamaru, and Naruto. Other than the quiet stirrings of affection he felt for them, at odd moments. Other than the way that Sakura could always figure him out, the way she always cared about him no matter how cruel he was to her.

And Kakashi. His teacher -- the one who helped him unravel the secrets of the  _sharingan_ , of  _chidori_ , of a hundred other jutsus -- his teacher, who told him once that everyone he loved was dead. Kakashi had never called Sasuke on his departure six years ago, had never asked why his simple words weren’t enough to stop him from leaving, but the man had to wonder. He had to, had to doubt himself, Sasuke’s affection for him, whatever.

And Sasuke would never tell him why. Because in that moment, he’d seen a quiet, solid strength that he simply  _didn’t have the option of._  For the five years of hell between the death of his family and the death of it’s killer, he’d been in constant fear -- that one day, Itachi would return, and finish what he started.

Even now, years later, he still felt it. He'd never seen Itachi's body buried, after all. He didn't know where it was. There was no grave, no marker, no  _proof_  . . . . Maybe that was why he always came back to his parents' room, seeking a comfort that no longer existed in this world. Or maybe Sakura and Tsunade were right, and he was simply grieving long after things were settled.

“Sasuke?”

Sasuke jumped. It was the second time that someone had woken up and noticed him before he noticed them -- he was getting careless.

“You’re awake?”

“Yes,” Sasuke said, getting to his feet. If he left soon enough, Naruto wouldn’t ask too many questions, and he might forget about it in the morning.

“Idiot,” Naruto said around a yawn. “You can stay. I just wanted to ask . . . .” He yawned again, mouth stretching up wide enough to admit Tonton. Sasuke watched him, bemused. “I just wanted to ask . . . do you know what’s bothering Sakura-chan?”

“No,” Sasuke said.

“Mmkay.” Naruto hugged his pillow tighter. “Stay here. I was almost asleep.”

Sasuke jerked back, startled. “You were awake the entire time?”

“Mm-hmm.” Naruto burrowed his nose against the pillow. “Well, a little bit. I woke up.”

Silence. Sasuke hesitated, tempted to leave, but . . . . Carefully, he returned to his spot.

“You were dreaming?” he asked tentatively.

“Mm-hmm.” Naruto sighed, stretching and wiggling his toes. His eyes cracked open a little. “About foxes. With a bunch of kits in a cave, hiding . . . protecting them from hunters . . . .”

Sasuke nodded, his eyes lowered.

“Were you dreaming? ‘S that why you’re in here?”

“No,” Sasuke said curtly. “Just thinking.”

“Me too.”

 _I didn’t know you knew how to think, dead last,_  Sasuke thought. He felt a surge of -- of something, of fondness, of affection, of . . . of something. Naruto could always awaken such emotions in him.

He could feel a smile tugging at his mouth. Naruto, the loud, obnoxious brat he was destined to butt heads with. He still had three thin lines on each cheek, like whiskers.  _A fox,_ Sasuke thought, and then,  _no, a kit._  Naruto would never grow up.

Sasuke leaned his head against the edge of the bed, eyes fluttering shut. It was too warm like this, squeezed into a tiny space, but he felt . . . right, here. Like he finally belonged. Naruto shifted on the bed, brushing his fingers against Sasuke’s forehead, and didn’t move away.

For a few minutes, Sasuke considered pulling back. But then he realized that Naruto was already asleep, and that it felt nice to be touched by someone who wasn’t a stupid, adoring female, or . . . . It just felt nice. Sasuke pushed the other thoughts away and closed his eyes again, drifting on a wave of darkness.

His last thought was that Naruto was making those little barks again, and that he was running his thumb protectively over Sasuke’s forehead, and that there was something very stupid and very touching about it all, like Naruto himself. He wanted to reach up and grab Naruto’s hand, shove it away, but he was too tired to move.

He fell asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**June 20**

 _12:10 AM_

“And I tell you, I keep telling you,  _stop being so damn insecure._  Those boys are beating you! Do you want them to keep beating you?”

Sakura stared down at her lap. “No, Mother,” she said quietly.

“You’re a pretty girl, a smart girl, why are you acting like this?” Miryokuteki continued railing, exorcizing the frustrations of years ago. Sakura didn't remember her mother ever acting like this then, and she was thankful, it might have crushed her . . . but it was crushing her now to think that her mother had felt this way all along.  _It’s been a long time since I was anything but Sasuke and Naruto’s equal. I’d almost forgotten how much it hurt . . . ._

Sakura clenched her hands into fists and swallowed back her frustration.  _It won’t do any good to argue -- she’s ill, not in her right mind, and it’s not her fault._  Miryo would be back to normal in a short while, apologizing for her outburst and drifting in the past.

 _Just let it go._

“Are you listening to me?” Miryokuteki demanded shrilly.

“Yes,” Sakura whispered numbly. “I am listening, Mother. I am always listening.”

An hour later, Miryo finally fell asleep. Sakura hurried from the apartment, stumbling blindly down the steps. She kept her teeth gritted against the surge of tears -- she would not be heard crying like a little girl, she would not be weak, dammit. She was stronger than this.

She made it outside and breathed gladly, the sticky night air clean and reassuring. It was easier to get under control without the smell of musty blankets and old perfume crowding her nose, even if her head still ached bitterly, from her temples to her shoulders and back again. She was so tired . . . .

“Everything all right, Sakura?”

Sakura jumped, scraping her elbow against the wall at her back. “Kakashi-sensei?”

He smiled, waved a little.

“I’m fine.” She looked down, swiping at her eyes. It would be nice -- very nice -- if she was still a little girl who felt better after a pat on the head from her sensei, but she wasn’t. She wouldn’t give herself the luxury of crying to him. “What brings you out here?”

He leaned against the wall at her side. “I’ve been worried about you,” he admitted. Sakura gazed up at him in surprise. “You work harder than Sasuke and Naruto, and you’ve been tired lately.”

Sakura blinked, somewhat dazed from her earlier bout of crying. “You followed me?”

“No,” he said, startled. “I knew your mother’s address from when you were my student. Sakura, what’s wrong?”

Blinking furiously, she looked away. “Nothing is wrong.”

He sighed, his hands sliding into his pockets with a whisper of fabric. Sakura waited until the silence was uncomfortable before she pushed away from the wall.

“I don’t want to talk right now,” she said coldly, with difficulty. It wasn’t easy to be mean to Kakashi. He was eccentric, odd, and sometimes distant -- but he was always easy-going, always mild-natured and a good listener. “I kept this private for a reason, and you don’t have to worry, it’s not going to -- to interfere with my -- duties.”

“I’m not here as your superior, Sakura,” Kakashi said quietly. He looked slouched, lazy, but his single eye said something else entirely. “I’m here as your friend.”

Sakura turned away from him angrily. “I don’t want to hear it!” She went to the door and yanked it open, struggling to ignore the stunned silence at her back. “I’m telling you, I want to keep this private. I don’t need or want your help.”

The door slammed shut behind her. Kakashi stood still for a moment, his arms loose at his sides, hands open.

Eventually, he turned and went back the way he came.

~

 _8:34 AM_

“Hey, Sakura-chan.”

Sakura glanced up as her tree branch vibrated wildly, swaying under the addition of Naruto’s weight. “Hm?”

He seated himself comfortably. Sakura tucked the scroll she’d been working on away, preparing for a long conversation about, no doubt, ramen or something.

“What’s wrong?”

She blinked. “Huh?”

Naruto began peeling away slivers of tree bark and dropping them to the distant earth. “You’re been weird lately. So, I was thinking.” His face heated. “I was thinking -- that, that you could tell me and I could help.”

“Oh.” Sakura faced him fully, somewhere between touched and nervous. “It’s -- well, nothing, really. Just some family stuff.”

“I know that I don’t, like, have a family,” Naruto said, curling in on himself self-consciously. “Other than Iruka-sensei and you and Sasuke.” He thought a moment. “And Kakashi. And Granny Hokage. And Shizune -- and oh, hell. Look, I want to help!” He glared into her eyes with sudden, bristling ferocity. “I can tell it’s bothering you really really bad!”

Sakura blinked. “Naruto . . . .”

He clenched his fists. “You’re my friend,” he announced. “And anything that bothers you bothers me too.” He pointed. “So tell me!”

Sakura rocked back, away from his finger. “Naruto!”

He hunched his shoulders sheepishly.

“Really.” Sakura relaxed. “I’m telling you, Naruto, it’s nothing to worry about! And I don’t like being questioned so much. I’m not a frightened little girl who needs her sensei and her teammates to look after her.”

“Your sensei, huh?” Naruto looked entirely too shrewd when he narrowed his eyes like that. “So Kakashi-sensei knows that something’s going on, too?”

“I -- no -- I just --” Sakura took a deep breath. “Naruto. Just, don’t, okay?”

His brief enthusiasm evaporated and his eyes widened piteously. “You don’t want to tell me?”

“No,” Sakura agreed firmly, glad she hadn’t needed to spell it out.

Rather than retreat, Naruto just grew even more stubborn. “Fine,” he said, pouting and clambering to his feet. “I’ll leave you alone.”

Which meant, she knew,  _I’ll just ask Kakashi._

“Naruto.”

He stopped, looking hopeful. “Yeah, Sakura-chan?”

She bit her lip, feeling slightly guilty, but the last thing she wanted was Naruto on her case. He wasn’t as clever as Sasuke or Kakashi, but he was a hundred times more determined, and he had a way of diving head-first into other people’s problems.

“Have you noticed something up with Sasuke?”

Naruto’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not just trying to distract me, are you?”

“Of course not!” Sakura gave him a  _who do you think I am?_  look, crossing her fingers behind her back. “I think there’s something really bothering him.”

Immediately he came back to her side, deeply worried. “What do you think it is?”

“I don’t know.” Sakura fidgeted with the hem of her tunic and decided that the best lies included a bit of truth. “He was arguing with Hokage-sama yesterday, you know.”

Naruto nearly fell off the tree branch. “He was? She didn’t tell me! And neither did he! Did they tell you?”

“No,” Sakura said honestly. “Shizune mentioned it and asked if there was anything troubling him lately. She was worried.”

“Hmm.” Naruto stared into the distance. “I have no idea. It’s not like Sasuke to be bothered by anything, really.”

“Then it must be bad,” Sakura said, halfway sincere, halfway not.

“Yeah.” He got to his feet quickly, still lost in thought. “Hey, I’ll talk to you later, Sakura-chan. I’d better get back to my patrol.”

Sakura watched him hop into the distance and breathed a sigh of relief. That was close.

“I’m not sure that was such a good idea.”

Sakura jumped and nearly took a header off her branch. Clinging to it, she whipped her head around. “Kakashi-sensei!” She remembered their last conversation and felt her face color.

He stepped easily from his limb to one beside hers. “Pointing him in Sasuke’s direction, I mean.”

“I don’t -- I don’t know what you're talking about,” Sakura stammered, biting her lip. The look he fixed her with was grave, although not angry. She could feel her face turning all sorts of red.

“There’s something wrong with him,” Kakashi said. “Naruto. Off-and-on, over the past few months, it’s been getting worse.”

Sakura thought immediately of the demon fox and felt her stomach clench. “What do you mean?”

“No, not like that.” He leaned against the tree trunk. “Something emotional.”

“We’re all just a mess of problems,” Sakura mumbled, hiding her face in her hands. If Kakashi was willing to forgive and forget her outburst of yesterday, then she would do the same. “What do you think it is?”

“I have no idea. You could try talking to Iruka.” Kakashi walked on his branch easily, as if he was strolling down a sidewalk. “Naruto does a lot to help his friends,” he added, deceptively casual. “I think he deserves more in return than being manipulated, don't you?”

Sakura’s fists clenched at the rebuke. She glared venomously at the back of his head, watching him grow smaller and smaller as he left, and finally shouted, “I know why you’re doing that!”

A pair of birds fled, startled into flight by her volume. She continued unrepentantly. “Just to put some distance between us! You might have fooled everyone else, but I know!”

Kakashi paused, like he was going to turn around and say something, but he didn’t. He sank briefly into a crouch and leapt away.

Sakura let out a short, exasperated breath. Maybe it had been wrong to throw that in his face. But Kakashi could be annoying sometimes, so unruffled and so calm, such a good friend and still so  _remote_  . . . so very, very far away.

She ripped a handful of leaves from a nearby clump and watched them drift slowly to the ground. It didn’t make her feel any better.

~

 _9:26 PM_

“Iruka-sensei, do you think something’s wrong with Sasuke?”

Iruka pushed a few stray wisps of hair out of his face, looking doubtful. Under Naruto’s strict orders, he’d gotten some more sleep and stopped working himself to death, and as a result, looked slightly more human. The two of them were at their ramen place, Naruto spinning on his stool to glance over the crowded street.

“With Sasuke?” He took a bite and thought about it hard. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Really?” Naruto swiveled back around, scuffing his sandals against the hard-packed dirt. “Sakura-chan said there was.”

“Well, Sakura would know better than I would.” Iruka inspected Naruto’s expression closely. “Are you investigating?”

Naruto tilted his head back, grinning. “Private Eye Uzumaki, on the case!”

Iruka stared at him a full beat and then looked skyward, murmuring a quick prayer for Sasuke’s sake.

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean, huh?” Naruto jumped up to slug him on the shoulder. “Jeez. A guy tries to help out around here.”

“Try asking Shikamaru about Sasuke,” Iruka suggested, managing to fend off Naruto's attack, ruffle his hair, and welcome a bowlful of seconds. Naruto, who’d already torn through four servings, looked intrigued, snatching up his chopsticks like he was going to start poking at Iruka’s share.

“So, other than Sasuke,” Iruka said, shielding his bowl. “What else is going on?”

“You’re just trying to distract me,” Naruto complained, struggling to lean around Iruka and reach his ramen.

“Yes,” Iruka agreed, eyeing Naruto warily. “Yes, I am. So?”

Naruto dropped back with a huff. “Fine, be that way.” He propped his elbow on the counter, glancing over with interest as a small group of kimono-clad girls passed, carrying lanterns. “Is it a holiday?”

“Someone’s birthday, I think.” Iruka watched with interest as a firefly ambled by. It was just starting to get dark. “You’re dodging my question.”

“Yeah, a little.” Naruto rested his cheek on his fist, eyeing Iruka’s disappearing ramen with a longing expression. “It’s just something I’ve been wondering about for a while. Not important.”

“You sure?”

Naruto shrugged uncomfortably under Iruka’s piercing stare. “Yeah, yeah. Hey, old man! Can I get some more ramen?”

“Doesn’t your stomach start hurting eventually?” Iruka asked despairingly as yet more noodles were added to Naruto’s bowl.

“Nah,” Naruto said, grinning. “You taught me well, sensei.”

Iruka laughed and they ate in comfortable silence, the sun inching below the horizon. Fireflies crowded the streets, flitting in and out of the crowd, until it was hard to tell them from distant lanterns.

~

 _11:43 PM_

“Oy! Shikamaru!”

The door opened, revealing not Shikamaru but a very angry Ino. Naruto immediately took two healthy steps back, holding up his hands like she was mugging him. “Not my fault, not my fault!” He had no idea what was going on, but it couldn’t hurt to point that out.

“We’ll see about that,” Ino said, eyeing him warily. “What do you want?”

“Just, just --” Naruto ran his hand through his hair, inching further away. “Just to talk to Shikamaru. Can I borrow him for a second?”

“No,” Ino snapped. “He and I are having a conversation about the details that he chooses to give his friends about our personal life.” Naruto turned red. From somewhere in the house, he thought he heard Shikamaru splutter indignantly about ‘girl talks with Sakura’. “And tomorrow he’s masterminding underhanded and probably immoral plans to spy on the villagers and make sure they don’t rebel against the school. So, no. You cannot borrow him.”

She started to slam the door. Naruto launched himself forward, catching it, and nearly getting his fingers smashed. “But it’s really important!”

“I don’t care!” Ino growled, struggling to shut the door. Naruto dug his feet in and struggled back.

“It’s about Sasuke!” he said desperately.

Ino looked briefly intrigued, and then shrugged. “Still don’t care.”

“Oy.” Shikamaru’s voice sounded lazy as always, although with a genuine note of annoyance. “If I gave some girl the special treatment you give Sasuke --”

“It’s a good thing you don’t,” Ino snapped. “Or we’d both find out how many creative ways I could make you dead.”

Naruto gulped. She turned her evil eye on him with a certain hint of wicked glee.

“Just a minute,” he pleaded. “Pretty please?”

The door began inching shut. Naruto wavered between rushing her and grabbing Shikamaru, and then running like hell, or just giving in and coming back later.

A nearby window suddenly slid open, depositing Shikamaru onto the lawn. Ino lost her grip on the door and was nearly pancaked by Naruto. “What ar--”

“Freedom!” Shikamaru grabbed a handful of Naruto’s jacket and teleported them away.

~

 _11:56 PM_

“Wow, she’s evil.”

Shikamaru laid back on the roof they were hiding on, staring up at the nighttime sky wearily. “You’re telling me.”

Naruto let the silence stretch, trying to be polite. Even if he had saved Shikamaru from his girlfriend, he wasn’t sure that the two of them were good enough friends to rope him into something like this.

Finally, Shikamaru rolled over, giving him a look. “So, what was so important you risked Ino's wrath to ask me?”

“Oh, that. Heh.” Naruto scratched the back of his head, trying to pretend that he’d just remembered. “Well, you see. I talked to Sakura-chan the other day.”

“Funny, that,” Shikamaru said wryly, sinking back to lounge against the roof again. “Since you two are on the same team and all.”

“Yeah,” Naruto said awkwardly, completely missing the sarcasm. “Well, um. She said that there was something bothering Sasuke.”

He paused, waiting for Shikamaru to comment, but Shikamaru seemed more interested in the sky. The moon was almost painfully full, painting the world an interesting blue-silver. The clouds were quite visible.

“And then I asked Iruka-sensei about it,” Naruto finished, a little grumpily. “And he said I should probably ask you.”

Shikamaru was silent for a long time.

“Shikamaru?” Naruto prompted.

Shikamaru sat up suddenly, alarmed and sort of twitchy.

“Waitaminute,” he blurted. “So something’s wrong with Sasuke --” Naruto nodded “-- something that he’s been hiding from you --” Naruto thought about it, and nodded again “-- so you decided to come ask me about it.”

Another nod.

“Maybe he’s just grieving over his parents or something,” Shikamaru suggested weakly, but hurriedly.

Naruto tilted his head to the side, thinking. “No,” he finally decided. “I don’t think so.”

“You sure?” Shikamaru asked.

“I’m sure.”

Silence.

Shikamaru looked around, searching for a distraction, but none were presented. He got to his feet. “So sorry, no idea, gotta run --”

“Wait!” Naruto leapt forward, grabbing Shikamaru around the waist and yanking him down with a  _thud!_  A dog started yapping in the house beneath them. “Oops.”

Shikamaru looked insulted. “What?”

“Just, just -- you can’t! You have to help me figure it out!” Naruto clasped his hands beneath his chin pleadingly. “You’re the smartest ninja in Konoha! You’re the only one who’ll know. Please?”

The flattery had absolutely no discernable effect. “What if I say I really don’t know?”

Naruto’s hands fell, eyebrows coming together in discouragement. “Is that what you’re saying?”

Shikamaru sighed, looking up at the sky again.  _Nice clouds,_  he thought dreamily,  _pretty, pretty clouds. Do they have Naruto-type clouds that assault them and ask stupid questions?_

He looked down. Naruto was still waiting for an answer, eyes as wide and innocent as they’d been at twelve.  _Probably not. **Hopefully**  not. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone._

“Why did you have to ask  _me_?” Shikamaru complained. “I think I’d rather be discussing my relationship with Ino.”

“Is it that bad?” Naruto looked bashful, suddenly, ducking his head to fiddle with something he found in his pocket. “Did I do something?”

“Of course not, idiot.” Shikamaru heaved a long sigh. He was good at sighing -- he got so much practice lately. “You don’t want to hear it,” he said.

“Yes, I do,” Naruto said stubbornly.

“Besides, I’m not even that sure,” Shikamaru added. “Sasuke’s too good at hiding things. It’s just sort of an educated guess.”

“That’s okay.”

“And you’re going to punch me or something,” he said desperately.

“I will not! Just tell me already!”

Shikamaru told him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A funny thing about this fic is that, when I was posting it, I skipped Chapter Four. I finally noticed and posted the missing chapter to my website, but that site is long since history and I cannot find the original copy of the fic ANYWHERE. I also can't remember what happened in that chapter, but apparently there was an explanation for why Ino and Shikamaru are hanging out in the village after Tsunade tells Team 7 there's no backup available, and why Sakura and her cat are living in Sasuke's house.

**June 21**

 _12:01 AM_

Sakura wasn’t able to drag herself away from her mother until after midnight. As she trudged up to the guest rooms of Sasuke’s house, she noticed again that everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, and tried not to sneeze.

Sasuke heard her on the stairs and came to greet her, wearing a loose training outfit, a quarterstaff in each hand. Sakura forced a smile for him. “Hi, Sasuke.”

He thumped the end of one staff against the floor, looking thoughtful. “You all right?”

 _An outright display of concern from Sasuke?_  Annoying questions from Naruto she could handle, she was used to them. Worry from Kakashi was less common, but not unexpected -- he was a teacher, older, and experienced when it came to figuring out people emotions.

But from  _Sasuke?_  Emotions were, to Sasuke, the Sphinx's riddle. He could never figure them out, even if the answer was blindingly obvious. And to be so actively worried about someone that he let them know about it . . . ?

Sakura wondered idly if she was going insane.

“Of course I’m all right,” she said a bit belatedly. “Just tired. Things have been rough lately, with the kidnappings and the explosion and everything . . . .”

He nodded, eyes not shifting an iota. “You’re not lying?”

Sakura tried to look offended. “Of course not.”

And it wasn’t like she was lying, not really. She’d be fine. She knew her mother was dying, she’d known for a long time, but telling everyone wouldn’t help.

Sakura used to be a weakling. A whiney little girl who ran to everyone with her problems. But over the years she’d learned that it was easier to deal on her own, to tuck her emotions away where no one could see them. She knew that it wasn’t entirely healthy -- had said so to Sasuke on a number of occasions when he did the same thing -- but anything was better than simpering and crying like she used to.

“Fine.” Sasuke turned and went back to his room, not angrily, just his usual forthright way.

Sakura sighed and went to the guest room, pausing to cuddle her neglected kitten. He no longer needed to be bottle fed, although she felt bad for leaving him alone so much. He meowed loudly, placing his paws on her chest. Grinning, Sakura laid back. “Bossy, aren’t we?”

A pleased purr was his response. Sakura rubbed his ear and let her eyes fall shut.

Sasuke shut his door behind him, listening hard to make sure Sakura was going to bed. Kakashi was sitting on his windowsill, slouched thoughtfully. He looked up as Sasuke stepped fully into the room.

Expression grim, Sasuke shook his head in a quiet negative. Sakura would hear if he said anything out loud.

Kakashi sighed and vanished.

Sasuke waited a moment, in case he came back, but nothing happened. Shrugging, he gathered up his staffs, assuming the first stance of the pattern dance that Kakashi’s arrival and subsequent explanations had interrupted.

So Sakura’s mother was dying, and Sakura was refusing to talk about it. It wasn’t a surprise, really -- at least, not to Sasuke. Kakashi thought that it might be shame, maybe, or guilt, or even denial, which was why he’d told Sasuke. They both knew that if he told Naruto, Sakura wouldn’t have get a moment’s peace. Sasuke knew how to be discrete.

And he also knew that it wasn’t shame, guilt, or denial. It was the same thing that it had always been: even after all these years, after all her successes and all of her incredible growth, Sakura still didn’t trust herself.

His pattern dance came to an end, his hair flying around his face and whipping across his mouth. He kept very still, listening hard and paying close attention to the burn of his muscles. He didn’t have a lot of room to improve, but he’d try anyway.

There was nothing he could do to help Sakura. Although Kakashi, odd and inconsistent man that he was, probably could.

And probably would. He always had managed to protect her, somehow, despite Sasuke and Naruto and all the trouble they could find, somehow gathering her up and jumping away to safety, setting her down almost reluctantly.

Sasuke started another dance.

~

 _12:02 AM_

Naruto punched Shikamaru.

“Hey!” Shikamaru caught the edge of the roof -- barely -- and almost toppled to the ground. “You said you weren’t gonna hit me!”

Naruto pointed at him accusingly. “I thought you were my friend!”

“I am your friend!” Shikamaru said, standing carefully. His jaw felt sore.

“Then what was that, huh?” Naruto demanded angrily. His hands fell to his sides and became fists, knuckles cracking. Shikamaru started backing away.

“It was the truth,” he said, holding his hands out. “I warned you that you weren’t gonn --”

“I am so sick of hearing shit like that!” Naruto exploded. “From everyone! Always asking why we’re such good friends, why Sasuke hasn’t dated anyone in a while, why I haven’t dated anyone --”

“This has nothing to do with that!” Shikamaru protested. He cursed as his heels found the edge of the roof. He didn’t like heights, but he didn’t want to get punched again, either. “Would you jus --”

“-- always saying things about Sasuke and Neji, about why they hate each other now, why they were friends in the first pl --”

“That was true,” Shikamaru said calmly.

Naruto paused, staring. Shikamaru seemed intense, which Naruto found unusual -- he usually wasn't, found it a waste of his time.

“Huh?” he asked intelligently.

“Sasuke and Neji,” Shikamaru said. Belatedly, Naruto remembered that Neji was Shikamaru's friend.

He sighed, tucking his hands into his pockets and staring into the distance. “It was only for a little while, though. I don’t think Sasuke knew what he was getting into.”

Naruto wavered between angry denial and simple anger. The latter won out.

“Did Neji hurt him or something?” he demanded. His fists, which had been tight before, clenched until they trembled.

“I don’t know.” Shikamaru seemed to realize this was a serious topic; he wasn’t looking away from Naruto’s expression. Almost, really, like he was trying to figure something out. “You’d have to ask him yourself.”

Naruto sighed and sat, suddenly, with a thump. The dog beneath them started barking again.

“How am I supposed to ask him something like that?” he asked despairingly. “And if what you said is true . . . .”

“It is.” Shikamaru rejoined him on the middle of the roof, settling down across from him.

“What the heck am I supposed to do?”

Shikamaru shrugged carelessly. The silence grew companionable once more, thick with the sound of crickets and wind. Shikamaru craned his neck to see the sky and Naruto stared at a distant house, memorable only because it was so large, so dark, and such horrible things had happened there. Rumor in the village that it was haunted. Sasuke refused to hear it, and continued living there.

“Shikamaru?” Naruto asked suddenly.

“Hm?”

“Am I gay, too?”

Shikamaru recoiled. “I don’t know! Why are you asking me, you idiot?”

Naruto looked embarrassed. “Well, I don’t know.”

“Then I don’t know!”

“Why would Sasuke like me like that if I wasn’t gay?” Naruto demanded.

“I don’t know!”

“And I don’t know and that’s why I’m asking you!”

“I’m telling you, you moron, I don’t know!” Shikamaru relaxed slowly, eyeing Naruto in case he did something else unexpected. “Jeez, don’t just spring a question like that on a guy. On a  _straight_  guy. Jeez.”

“Sorry.”

Shikamaru went back to the clouds. Naruto was quiet for a long time, apparently lost in thought. When he stood up suddenly and jumped away, Shikamaru was surprised. He watched Naruto hop from rooftop to rooftop, until he reached his home and disappeared inside. After that, there was silence.

“Hm,” he said thoughtfully, and set back to watch the sky some more. Ino would find him eventually.

~

 _9:17 PM_

“There’s been no activity,” Naruto said, sticking his head briefly into the room. “Patrolled all day. Gotta go. Talk later.”

“Wait!”

Sighing, Naruto’s head reappeared around the edge of the door. “Yeah?”

Tsunade crooked a finger commandingly. “In here.”

Naruto came and stood in front of her, jumping anxiously from foot to foot. He kept looking towards the door like there was somewhere very important that he needed to be.

“I need to ask you something,” Tsunade said calmly, folding her hands and resting them before her.

“Yeah yeah yeah?” Naruto rushed, anything but calm.

“It’s about Sasuke,” Tsunade added, maybe a little nervously. She wasn’t certain about how Naruto would react to her questions, and didn’t want to risk their friendship. It was, understandably, very important to her.

Naruto froze. He turned slowly to face her, eyes very wide.

“What?” he squeaked.

She leaned away from him, surprised by his surprise. “What?” she demanded.

He blinked. “What do you mean, what?”

“I mean, what? Why do you look so startled?”

Naruto’s face flooded with color. “Startled? Who? Me? I don’t look startled. No one startled here!” He scratched the back of his head and forced a brave laugh, turning for the door. “Well, I’ll be going --”

“Wait a minute,” Tsunade said. She gave him her best  _I’m the Hokage and I can read your mind_  look. “What’s going on here?”

Naruto inched away. “Well, um, you see.”

She waited.

He suddenly threw himself in the seat across from her. His hands, gripping the edges of the table, were white-knuckled, and his expression was focused. “Am I gay?”

“What?!”

“Why does everyone always say that,” Naruto muttered, head falling to rest against the tabletop. “Is there something they don’t want to tell me? Ow.”

“What do you mean, are you gay?” Tsunade was mostly amused. “You’d know a lot better than I would, brat. Or has someone been saying things?”

He waved her concern away, straightening and sitting back in his chair. Always hyper, he drummed his fingers against the tabletop, but at least he wasn’t hopping all over the place. She’d take what she could get.

“So you’re wondering if you’re gay,” Tsunade said, struggling to hide her smile. “What does this have to do with Sasuke?”

“Nothing,” he said, voice unusually firm. The look he pinned her with told her, quite simply, not to ask. “Nothing at all.”

“All right.” Tsunade backed off. “Well, I don’t know if you’re gay.”

He looked crestfallen. “You don’t?”

“I think that’s the sort of thing you’d know for yourself,” she added wryly. He looked deeply worried. “Why is it bothering you so much?”

Naruto grabbed a blank sheet of paper from nearby and began shredding it. “Well, you see. I have this friend.”

“Mm-hmm.” Tsunade recognized the beginnings of a complicated story. She settled in comfortably, wondering if the Third ever had such conversations with young ninjas, or if it was something about her. She tried to imagine, say, Itachi having such a discussion with Sarutobi and her head started to hurt.

“And this other friend -- who’s really smart -- said that the other friend -- the first friend -- might sort of kind of be in love with me.” He winced at the word ‘love’ and let out a huge sigh. “Oops,” he added as some scraps of paper went flying.

“Well.” Tsunade placed her palms flat on the table and watched Naruto scurry around to pick up the paper. “‘In love’ is kind of a strong way to put it, maybe.”

“No, that’s what Shik -- I mean, my second friend said.” Naruto sat, staring up at her with round anxious eyes. “That they were in love.” He winced again.

“Okay.” Tsunade thought a moment. “And this first friend of yours being in love with you makes you wonder if you’re gay.”

He nodded emphatically.

 _Back to basics._  “Just because someone of the same sex is in love with you doesn’t mean you’re gay,” Tsunade reminded him.

“I know that,” Naruto said, looking a bit put out. “It’s just that Sas -- my first friend is really smart. Smarter than my second friend.” He looked miserable. “He wouldn’t be in love with me if I wasn’t gay. Right?”

“You can’t always chose who you fall in love with,” Tsunade said gently.

“Yeah, but . . . .”

Tsunade tilted her head, waiting.

“Yeah, but . . . .” Naruto looked around desperately, searching for a distraction. “How do I know if I’m gay or not?”

“Um.” Tsunade sat back, blinking.

 _Was_  Naruto gay? She’d never paid any attention to it before. He was so incredibly much like her little brother that she couldn’t help but adore him, and he was so determined and focused that she couldn’t help but dote on him. He’d already done incredible things in the short span of his life, and she didn’t doubt that he’d do many more.

But was he gay? She’d never seen him with a girlfriend, but then, Naruto didn’t know very much about girls. She knew that Hinata Hyuuga used to have a crush on him, but he’d never reciprocated. And she knew that he used to have a crush on Sakura . . . but now he just treated her like a precious little sister.

“I don’t know,” Tsunade said honestly. “ _You’d_  know, I think.”

“But I don’t,” he said quietly, words so soft that she almost couldn't hear them. He looked down at the table.

She smiled sadly. “Just ask yourself -- this friend. Are you interested in them? Romantically?”

He looked distant, thoughtful, but only briefly. He answered, “No.”

“Are you sure?” Tsunade pressed.

Naruto looked torn. “Yes. No. I don’t know!” He buried his head in his arms.

Tsunade tried not to get impatient. This had to be difficult for him.

“Just think about it some more,” she advised. On an impulse, she ruffed his hair, and then tugged on the necklace she’d given him as he sat up. “You’ll figure it out. I know you will.”

He grinned. “Thanks, old lady!” And just like that, his bad mood was gone -- he leapt to his feet, heading for the door. “I’ve gotta go meet Iruka-sensei. Talk to you later!”

The shut behind him with a gust of wind, sending the shredded paper he’d left behind everywhere. Tsunade started to sweep it into the garbage can and then stopped cold. She’d forgotten to ask Naruto about Sasuke.

“Little brat,” she muttered.

~

 _11:32 PM_

“Sasuke, if you keep this up, you’re going to collapse.”

Startled, Sasuke turned and found Kakashi a few feet away, watching him. They stared at each other in silence for a moment, one surprised, the other grim, before Sasuke managed to overcome his shock and end the jutsu he’d been using.

He turned back to looking outside the village. The two of them stood on the far eastern wall, a few dozen feet away from the guard post. It was just edging into late afternoon, the air was thick and hazy with humidity and heat. Behind them, they could hear the villagers struggling to repair the damage that had been done.

“How long have you known?” Sasuke asked.

He could feel Kakashi’s wry smile, even if he couldn’t see it. “Do you really think I wouldn’t notice one of my students gaining new powers and strengths so mysteriously?”

“I figured you’d just blame it on the curse seal,” Sasuke said coolly. His heart was somewhere high in his throat, thumping hard and ratcheting his voice up a notch.

“No, of course not.” Kakashi didn’t sound offended, just bored. But then, Kakashi always sounded bored.

He came to stand at Sasuke’s side, overlooking the grassy hills and forests outside of the village. There was a small clearing in one direction, where Gaara once transformed into Shukaku and Naruto summoned Gamabunta, years ago. In another direction, there was another field where Sand-nin had summoned giant snakes and sent them into the village. The nearby wall was still bright and new, bearing various cracks from where it had been crushed that day.

“So  _byakugen_  has given us nothing,” Kakashi said. He looked down. “Does Neji care if you use it?”

“Probably,” Sasuke said, struggling to keep his voice light. “Of course, it’s been a few years since I talked to him.”

“Of course,” Kakashi said calmly. “Well, there’s no use tiring yourself out over it. Between our  _sharingan_  and your  _byakugen_ , we would have found anything worth finding.”

Sasuke gritted his teeth. “I’m not giving up.”

“No,” Kakashi agreed, “and neither am I. But right now, it’s someone else’s move. This is the calm before the storm, Sasuke. Take the opportunity to rest while you can.”

Sasuke scoffed.

Kakashi shrugged and vanished. Sasuke remained in silence, listening to the shout of families calling their children to supper, and started  _byakugen_  again. Anything was better than going home to an empty house with Tsunade’s words chasing after him. Anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some notes on the fic that may not be properly explained.
> 
> -Naruto wondering if he's gay -- this isn't all of a sudden; Kakashi mentioned earlier that "something's been bothering Naruto" for a while, and Iruka has guessed for some time that there might be something more between Sasuke and Naruto.
> 
> -Shikamaru knowing about Sasuke's crush -- actually, Shikamaru didn't figure that one out on his own, Ino did, and told him.
> 
> -Sasuke's byakugen -- Neji taught it to him in exchange for Sasuke's help in removing his curse seal (the one on his forehead), which eventually led to a brief relationship that ended badly.
> 
> I was planning on writing some prequels which detailed all of this, but never found the time, and it doesn't seem likely that they'll be written now. Hopefully it's not too confusing. ^^


	7. Chapter 7

**June 22**

 _4:45 AM_

Naruto shook Sasuke awake. “Sasuke! Sasuke!”

Dark eyes slid open slowly. “. . . the hell?”

“We’re being called. Come on.” Naruto held up a leaf, expression grim. “It’s Tsunade. I think we might have a lead.”

‘The calm before the storm,’ Kakashi had called it. It was on them.

Sasuke rolled out of bed, already reaching for his shirt.

~

 _4:47 AM_

Tsunade looked both grim and excited as Naruto and Sasuke burst through her door together, the former stumbling over a chair and nearly landing on his face. “We have them.”

“Them?”

“Hikage-Ibuki, our kidnappers.” She tapped the map triumphantly. “I was watching it a few minutes ago when two points of light, here and here --” she pointed “-- exploded and became much brighter. They’ve vanished now, but they were there.”

“Vanished?” Sasuke asked, bending forward to look intently at the map. “They didn’t go off the edges of the map, but they vanished?”

“They vanished. I might have thought they’d been killed, however --” She gripped both boys’ shoulders and forced them to look at her. “Those few minutes that they were visible, I saw several other lights around them, the chakara of gathered people. The lights were much smaller and one was quite distinctive.” She smirked. “That of the Hyuuga clan.”

Sasuke’s head flew up as he thought of Neji. “Meiyo.”

“He must have seen the map when I was talking to him about Hogo.” Tsunade looked away. “That’s why he agreed to be taken. So that we could get an opportunity like this.”

“His family --”

“What good will it do?” Tsunade was silent a moment, fighting some vehement internal battle. When she came to her decision, she was grim. “I have a message for you both, and then you have to go.”

“Huh? Go where? Message?”

“From Hinata and Neji Hyuuga.” 

They both froze, Naruto’s frantic energy stilling, Sasuke’s restless intensity growing even sharper. “You know them?” Tsunade asked.

“Yes,” Sasuke said suspiciously.

“Hinata is Meiyo’s older sister.” Tsunade looked down at the map. “Since Neji doesn’t have any brothers or sisters, Meiyo was assigned to the Branch House so that he could guard Hanabi.”

She sighed. “They're apparently very close. Hinata and Neji wanted to be here, but they’re on a mission together . . . .” She paused.

Naruto forced an uneasy laugh. “I’ll bet Neji hates that,” he said, casting a twitchy, skittish glance in Sasuke’s direction. He couldn't seem to hold still, bouncing restlessly, fiddling with the endless snaps and zippers of his jacket.

Ice trickled down Sasuke’s spine as he stared rigidly ahead.  _He knows,_  he thought slowly.  _Who told him? Or has he known all along?_

“There weren’t a lot of options.” Tsunade looked at them. It took Sasuke a minute to realize that she wasn't talking about Naruto. “They asked me to tell you -- save him.”

Naruto’s face was unusually grave. “That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

Naruto looked over at Sasuke again, expression composed. Sasuke forced his own paranoid worry from his throat and into his belly, where it would do less damage.

“Then we’ll do it,” he said coolly. Naruto nodded once, eyebrows arrowing together in fierce determination. “Where is he?”

Tsunade smiled tightly. “Good. Be careful --”

“Hey, hey, of course.” Naruto thumped Sasuke on the shoulder, grinning like he hadn’t a care in the world. Sasuke just smirked, swift and dark, deadly.

Tsunade handed them a map. “Meiyo's location is marked on here. Go, quickly. I’ve already sent Kakashi and Sakura after the other children.”

Sasuke nodded briskly, not quite meeting her eyes. It seemed like everyone could see through him lately, and he didn’t like it. It was . . . frightening, to say the least. “Come on, Naruto.”

They went out through the window, the curtains swaying in the breeze of their departure. The room quickly grew silent without them, leaving Tsunade to stare at her map wordlessly. The light of the village’s chakara lit the room like a thousand tiny candles.

As the Hokage, she could not go with either team, or even go to help them, no matter how much she wanted to. She had to trust . . . and she had to stay right here.

Right here.

She watched those small bright lights hard.

~

 _5:35 AM_

“This place . . . .” Sakura frowned sternly. She and Kakashi were hidden outside a small shack, utterly concealed by darkness. Even the moon was hiding, tonight, and the air smelled heavily of rain, of impending thunder.

Kakashi waited curiously for her to continue. “I’ve seen it before," she explained, brow furrowed. "Where have I . . . ?”

Kakashi opened the map he carried. “This is the spot that Tsunade marked,” he said. “If there’s an invisibility jutsu it must be very good.” He rolled the map back up and paused. “Sakura?”

She was covering her face, shaking her head slowly. “The other day.” She lowered her hands. “When we were retrieving the scrolls with the warding jutsus and Sasuke was injured. We hid here.”

Kakashi scowled, alarmed. “You were inside and you didn’t notice anything?”

Sakura shook her head silently, still kicking herself.

“No traces of chakara? No proof that anyone was there?”

“None.” Sakura scanned the darkness surrounding them warily. “Naruto even poked around, looking for food or something. We didn’t see anything.”

“Hn.” Kakashi re-pocketed the map with a sigh. “Well, we won’t find the kids by staying out here. Let’s teleport straight onto the other side of the door, as close to the wall as you can manage. Don't move until I've had a chance to look around with my sharingan, and don't make any sound.”

Sakura nodded briskly, preparing the jutsu.

~

 _5:46 AM_

“There it is.”

“A cave,” Naruto said, grinning a little. “Very nice. Just like my dream.” Sasuke was silent. “You do good in caves, don’t you, Sasuke? With all the closed space and the katon jutsus.”

Sasuke nodded. “Try to stay behind me,” he muttered, leading the way to the entrance. “Don’t get stuck in the crossfire.”

“Don’t barbecue any little kids,” Naruto shot back.

They entered the cave together, Naruto a step behind Sasuke. Two pairs of eyes scanned the unending darkness until Sasuke finally summoned his  _sharingan_ , exasperated and impaitent. Naruto sensed a change in the air and slowed, looking at Sasuke curiously. 

Something warm dripped onto Naruto’s hand. He rubbed at it, staring at the back of Sasuke’s head. “Sasuke?”

He froze, spine stiffening with shock or horror. “Shit,” he whispered.

“Wha --” Naruto stepped forward, bumping into his back. “What’s --”

A light clicked on from somewhere, illuminating a tall man with bloodstained hands and mouth. Something hit the ground behind Naruto with a wet thump.

“Ah,” the man said as Naruto turned slowly to look. “It was supposed to fall as you entered. Too bad traps were never my strong suit.”

A small, dark-haired corpse was just behind Naruto’s heels, a wide, gaping hole in it’s back. Naruto lifted his hand, horrified, and touched the blood there. More of it pooled around his sandals.

“I guess I’ll just have to get rid of you the old-fashioned way,” the man finished, sighing dramatically. His hands lifted and blurred in a jutsu --

 _“Katon: Goukakyuu no jutsu!”_

Sasuke smiled grimly and took a deep breath. Naruto braced himself as the flames hit, not strong enough to burn him, considering his chakara level, but strong enough to make him scream. He ducked, covering his face, and Sasuke shielded him.

 _“Katon: Ryuuka no jutsu!”_  Sasuke’s voice was terrifying in it’s volume. The flames he breathed pushed the wall of fire back until it burst, and then stopped.

Naruto stared. “You could’ve taken him out! What are --”

“The children,” Sasuke said tensely. “Get past him and get them out of here. Go!”

 _“Kage Bunshin no jutsu!”_  A handful of clones leapt around Sasuke, some of them attacking their enemy, some of them darting past. One stopped and shot a glance over his shoulder --

Sasuke nodded. Naruto disappeared further into the cave.

~

 _5:48 AM_

“It’s just like I remember,” Sakura whispered. Kakashi touched her shoulder, pointing for her to check out the kitchen. He went to the far wall, inspecting it carefully.

Sakura returned a moment later. “Nothing.”

He shook his head. “Me neither.” He gestured for her to come closer, and stepped firmly in front of her, placing her between him and the wall. Sakura glared at the back of his head but he didn’t seem to notice.

“You can come out,” he said loudly. “We know you’re there.”

For a moment, there was only silence. 

“I don’t think anything’s happening,” Sakura murmured.

“The walls,” Kakashi whispered, eye widening.

Sakura looked at the far wall intently, waiting for something to happen. She was just about to say that she couldn't see anything when suddenly, it all shifted -- the floor was the ceiling or was the ceiling behind her, near the door? Her stomach twisted as her inner ear spun, every well-trained ninja sense screaming that she was standing on the wrong part of the room.

She bent over and vomited. Had she ever felt such strong genjutsu before? This rivaled by far anything Kurenai could do. It made even Kakashi stagger, his hand coming up slowly -- slowly, slowly, too slowly -- to reveal the sharingan.

Something bright hit him in the throat. He fell.

 _“Bakuretsu Kage Bunshin no jutsu!”_  Sakura’s shadow clone leapt forward, exploding once it reached the far wall. The illusion wavered and faded -- for a moment, Sakura could see two shapes, male and female, and then the ‘melting wall’ reappeared.

She leapt aside as kunai tore through the air, backflipping and catching herself on the ceiling, chakara humming through her feet. She landed in front of Kakashi, still sprawled on the floor, and slapped her hands against the wooden floor.  _“Doton: Doroku Gaeshi!”_

A wall of earth tore through the planks, hiding Sakura and Kakashi briefly from view. Sakura’s hands came together in a seal and she muttered,  _“Chiyute no jutsu!”_  and placed her hands on Kakashi's back.

Nothing. She tried again, a slightly different technique.  _“Mezamesaseru no jutsu!”_

Kakashi’s eye opened. He blinked for a moment, looking confused, and then sat up slowly. He pulled the dart out of his neck and gave it a rueful look.

“You all right?” Sakura asked quietly.

“I’ve been better,” he said honestly. He looked at the wall in front of them appraisingly. “Very nice. How much longer will it last?”

Sakura listened, and then shrugged. “Well, they’re not attacking it, so for a few more minutes.”

“They’re not attacking?”

“Probably preserving their chakara.”

“They?”

“I saw them briefly.” Sakura stood, offering Kakashi her hand. He took it even though she figured that he probably didn’t need it, and cracked his back. She winced. “A man and a woman.”

“Did you see any children?”

She shook her head mutely.

“Damn.” He looked at the wall. “We need to be ready.”

“I can hide us,” Sakura offered. “We’ll become visible the moment we attack, but it’ll buy us a few minutes.”

“Do it.” Kakashi’s hand lifted like he was going to push his forehead protector away, but he hesitated with a frown. “If I use it, I’ll be weakened very quickly. Unlike Sasuke, my body isn’t built to sustain the  _sharingan_  for long periods of time.”

“Then don’t use it,” Sakura said. “Judging by the illusions and jutsus our enemies were using, they aren’t too powerful.”

Kakashi nodded. Sakura’s started another seal, wondering ruefully if she would one day develop carpal tunnel syndrome, and said,  _“Kakumau no jutsu!”_

~

 _5:50 AM_

“Too bad your friend ran off and left you,” Sasuke’s enemy taunted, a wicked smile tugging across his face. He seemed almost like a giddy child showing off a new trick -- he even bounced on his heels, clapping his bloody hands together. “You’re going to need his help.”

Sasuke snorted. “I don’t need anyone’s help,” he said coolly. He slid into a wary half-crouch, ready to attack or defend. “What’s your name?”

“Kazunori.” The man started pacing idly, tongue flicking out to clean the blood from his lips. “And you’re Sasuke Uchiha.”

Sasuke didn’t bother to answer, launching himself forward in an attack. His flurry of kicks and punches was blocked easily, although he’d expected that. More important was the glimpse he caught of Kazunori’s taijutsu -- weak, but strengthened by an enormous chakara. In fact, his ninjutsu had been the same way. Was he merely a strong ninja without much training or was there something else going on?

His chakara was very odd, Sasuke decided, and then a kick brushed across his belly. He leapt back, hands blurring, threw three kunai, and summoned his  _sharingan. “Doton: Tochikawa no jutsu!”_  A river of mud appeared around his ankles and surged at his opponent, chipping away at the rock walls of the cave.

 _“Katon: Ryuuka no jutsu!”_

The same jutsu he’d used before -- it wasn’t strong enough to stop Sasuke’s attack, just bake it solid. Frowning, Sasuke darted forward, forming seals as he went.  _“Furuiokosu Katana no Kage!”_  A dark sword appeared in his hand.

Sasuke darted behind Kazunori, faster than the eye could see, and sliced him from shoulder to waist with a triumphant laugh.  _He might be powerful but he can’t survive thi --_

Kazunori backhanded him with a roar, sent him flying down the passage until he hit a stalagmite. It shattered and Sasuke hit the ground, gasping.

The shadow blade wavered as his consciousness faded. Spitting out blood, Sasuke forced himself to stand slowly, his eyes wide with shock. There wasn’t a mark on Kazunori’s body -- if anything, his chakara had increased.

Sasuke had only seen one person who could escape a cut from a shadow blade untouched, but Orochimaru was far away and not to mention, dead. And even he'd felt some pain -- he hadn’t become  _stronger_ , not like this -- like this -- whatever this guy was.

“Who in the hell are you?” he rasped. Kazunori smiled gleefully.

“Don’t bother asking that question,” a voice ground out from behind him. Sasuke turned and met a pair of red eyes, slit-pupiled and gleaming in a feral face. “It doesn’t matter what he is.”

Naruto stepped from the shadows, body glowing with vulpine chakara. Sasuke inched away, hand trembling where it gripped the shadow blade. The energy in Naruto’s body was so strong that he could feel the ground dancing, he could feel the air pushing down on him. The pieces of stalagmite beneath his feet clattered loudly.

“Naruto,” he whispered. “Sto --”

“It doesn’t matter what he is,” Naruto repeated, “because in a few minutes, he’s going to be dead.”

Kazunori brought his hands together in front of his chest. “Kogeki no ju --”

 _“KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!”_

Naruto’s roar drowned out Kazunori’s voice. Sasuke leapt back as Naruto multiplied by the hundredfold, some clones vanishing as they were crushed between the narrow walls of the passage.

A group of them gathered, all with Naruto’s cruelly gleaming eyes, and attacked Kazunori. He threw them aside but they kept coming, and coming --

One clone, standing near the exit, bellowed,  _“Katon: Karyuu Endan!”_

Sasuke jumped back as the flames formed a solid wall and licked at the air. Naruto had never used that jutsu before -- ! One clone saw his movement and attacked him. Stunned, Sasuke blocked his blow and darted away, too startled to think seriously about defense.

Naruto -- the real Naruto -- was standing aside, teeth bared in a snarl.  _“Rasengan!”_

Sasuke slashed the clone attacking him with his sword, but it did hardly any damage. There was too much of the fox in it. Swearing, he hit the wall, blocking as many punches and kicks as he could. Another clone joined in, practically frothing at the mouth.  _Insane! They’re barely even human!_

Naruto leapt at Kazunori. Sasuke had just enough time to notice Kazunori’s wide, terrified eyes, before Naruto’s rasengan hit. Kazunori  _exploded_  -- literally. Sasuke ducked the spray of blood and guts and swore again, voice ending in a choked snarl as a clone slammed his head into a wall. The ground was shaking again, and Sasuke didn't think it was from Naruto's chakara. Small chips of rock rained down from the ceiling.

A third clone joined the fray, grabbing the shadow blade from Sasuke’s hand and driving it into his gut. Sasuke collapsed, took a kick to his chin silently, and managed to scream, _"Naruto!"_

~

 _5:52 AM_

The wall of earth crumbled. Sakura’s and Kakashi’s opponents had become fully visible, and the woman smiled.

“We can see you,” she said.

Sakura scowled, stepping forward. She must be bluffing --

Their eyes met. The woman’s eyes -- frightfully pale -- were devoid of any emotion but dark glee: as Sakura’s foot touched the ground, she realized belatedly that she should have checked for traps.

The wall at her left exploded, catched her across the shoulder and hip. As she skidded across the floor she saw Kakashi leap over a similar explosion.

He landed next to the woman, grabbing her arm and throwing her into the man. They tumbled to the floor as Sakura twisted to her feet.  _“Hi no Kunai!”_  Kunai, made of flame, leapt from her palms and riddled the woman’s body. She screamed, batted ineffectually, and Sakura took a moment to catch her breath.

Kakashi blocked a punch the man aimed at his head, eye flashing wide in surprise. He dug his feet into the floor, but the wood splintered uselessly as he was driven back. Finally he jumped away, landing beside Sakura.

“Their chakara!” he snapped.

“I know!” she snapped back. “It’s enormous!”

The woman straightened, panting. She’d put out the flames, but she was badly burned.

This time Sakura stepped forward, glaring. She felt rather than heard Kakashi shift his stance slightly, as to be right behind her and follow her lead. “Stop wasting our time," she ordered. She was proud of the calmness in her voice, even if she didn't feel it -- rather, there was a sense of dread. "Where are the children you’ve stolen?”

“What children?” the man asked, smiling.

“I haven’t seen any children,” the woman added, stumbling closer to her companion. “Perhaps you should look for them in the dungeon.  _Doton: Kekkai Doroutoumu!_ ”

Sakura slapped her palms together. “ _Uchikesu no jutsu: Kekkai Doroutoumu!_ ” She’d heard about  _Kekkai Doroutoumu_  from Naruto's encounter with it and didn’t want to be locked in an earth prison that absorbed her chakara.

Shuriken whistled from behind her, striking the man’s shoulders. He yanked them out and met Kakashi’s attack halfway, throwing him into the far wall and sending him through it.

“So you negated my attack,” the woman said uneasily, facing Sakura. She didn't stand like a ninja. She barely  _fought_  like a ninja. There was something going on here . . . . “Impressive.”

Sakura was in no mood to play around. “Where are they?” she asked grimly. She drug her thumb over a shuriken, painting the words for a blood-promise seal on the inside of her arm. It evaporated as she added, “If you tell me, I’ll let you live.”

 _Of course, Kakashi won’t, but that’s not the point._

“What a fool,” the woman said peacefully. “What if I just tell you and kill you?”

Sakura smirked. “You can try.”

Something came flying back into the room, via the hole that had been made a few moments ago. It stilled, and Kakashi threw his opponent's body aside, the life still fading from the man's eyes. Kakashi hadn’t even uncovered his  _sharingan._  “Well?”

 _“Doton: Kekkai Doroutoumu!”_

Sakura started to negate the attack again when she saw the woman’s chakara coming at her. It was a wasteful, if effective, technique -- hitting someone with a wave of chakara would knock them out, true, but the chakara put into the air couldn't be retrieved, unless you were a Hyuuga.

It was still too much for her to handle. She managed a choked-off scream before the world went black, and she could see the dome of earth surrounding Kakashi. They’d been beaten.


	8. Chapter 8

_5:54 AM_

The clones attacking him vanished in puffs of strange red mist as the cave started to rumble. Sasuke staggered to his feet, searching desperately for Naruto and the exit.

Something crashed into him. It took him a moment to realize that it was, in fact, Naruto, and another to realize that they were already outside -- Naruto shoved him away and sent him skidding across the ground.

Sasuke pushed himself up on his elbows, gasping. Naruto was glaring from a few feet away, fists tightly clenched, eyes wild and whiskers dark and bold. The fox was still in control.

“Naruto,” Sasuke rasped, wincing and shifting his weight uneasily. “Listen to me. Fight it off.”

“Idiot,” Naruto said, with the disdainful, cold voice that Sasuke sometimes used. “We are Naruto. He’s right here, watching.” Naruto started to pace, slowly coming closer to Sasuke.

Sasuke forced himself to sit, panting. His mouth was full of blood -- he thought dimly that he must have bitten his tongue -- and his ribs and right shoulder felt bruised. His stomach was a mass of pain from the shadow blade that had been driven into it, aching every time he breathed. He didn’t even want to think about internal damage.

“Are you hurting much?” It would have been concerned, if it came from the real Naruto, but now it sounded snide, mocking.

“No,” Sasuke lied firmly, starting to stand.

“Shut up, liar.” Naruto was in his face before he could blink, shoving him back to the ground and smirking as he grimaced. “We’re sick of you always acting so tough.”

There was something oddly monotonous to Naruto’s voice, for all it’s low growl. “My bad,” Sasuke said, struggling to keep his voice level. “I didn’t realize you were so senstive.”

Naruto bared his teeth. “Shut up!”

Sasuke shut up.

“That’s better.” Naruto straightened, staring up at the distant sky. “It’s been a long time since we were free, you know. He’s gotten too good at binding us.”

Sasuke gripped two handfuls of grass but said nothing. He just had to hope that Naruto got control of the fox, and soon.

“That impulsive, hasty, suicidal boy,” Naruto continued. Sasuke could clearly see the clean, vulnerable line of his throat. If Naruto had been his enemy, Sasuke could have killed him in a heartbeat. But they both knew that Naruto wasn’t his enemy. “If you think he’s reckless, try sharing his body with him. We’re always convinced we’re going to be killed.”

Sasuke sneered wordlessly. For someone who lived in Naruto’s body, the demon fox sure didn’t know him too well.

“But in the end, he’s mostly stupid.”

Naruto turned from the sky, staring down at Sasuke with an odd, gleaming expression, sharp teeth bared. Carefully, Sasuke pushed himself half off the ground, most of his weight resting on his left elbow. If Naruto tried to hit him, Sasuke could block with his right arm.

“Sort of like you,” Naruto added casually, stepping forward, one foot on either side of Sasuke’s legs. Even as he stared, Naruto sank slowly down until he was sitting on Sasuke’s shins. “Did you really think he’d never know?”

A flood of heat hit Sasuke out of nowhere. So Naruto knew.  _Naruto knew._

“It doesn’t matter,” he heard himself snarl. His voice was thick with blood.  _Shit. I must be bleeding internally._

“But it does,” Naruto argued, smile simple and chilling. “Did you really think you could claim us so easily?” He slipped forward, one hand sliding up to grip Sasuke’s shoulder. “Sasuke?”

Sasuke shuddered at the sound of his name. Naruto pushed him back onto the ground easily -- the strength in his hand, his arm, was terrifying, and he wasn't even trying. Sasuke didn’t stand a chance of resisting him.

The long blades of grass tickled his ears and cheeks. Sasuke tried to keep his breath even.  _Come on, Naruto, please . . . ._

Naruto smirked. “We don’t think you can claim us,” he said coolly. “We think we’ll claim you.”

And before Sasuke could think of a single thing to say to that, Naruto slid forward and kissed him. Hard.

Helpless, Sasuke grabbed a handful of Naruto’s jacket and arched up against him. His mouth was cruel and harsh, teeth sharp and tearing at Sasuke’s lips as his tongue licked away every trace of blood. It was -- fuck. It wasn’t Naruto. But it was so close, that slick slide of lips on lips and for a moment --

Naruto drew back only slightly, lips stained red. “This is what you wanted?” he growled. His eyes flickered oddly, crimson to blue to crimson again.

Sasuke let out a choked laugh of relief.  _At last._  “Naruto,” he said. “Come on, fight it --”

Naruto growled again and and grabbed him, kissing him with such force that Sasuke could feel his skull denting the soft earth. He drew Sasuke’s tongue into his mouth and lapped at the cut on the side, rolled his lips loosely, like a cat. Or maybe just a fox.  _Not Naruto,_  Sasuke reminded himself, heart pounding.  _Not Naruto._

“Ours,” Naruto whispered thickly. He voice hitched and his body trembled as the real Naruto finally began to fight. “Ours.” He yanked Sasuke’s shirt viciously aside, nearly giving him whiplash, and found the vulnerable pulse of his throat. He bit.

Sasuke swore, struggling frantically to get away. Naruto held on, strong hands depositing bruises on his ribs and hip. When he stopped, it was very sudden. Sasuke drew his legs up and kicked him in the belly, rolling quickly away. Naruto went flying --

\-- and hit the ground a few feet away, shouting. Sasuke sat up, heart thudding, and touched his throat. He was bleeding, but Naruto seemed to have missed his jugular. Thankfully.  _Fucking vampiric fox._

Naruto kept coughing, swearing. Sasuke realized abruptly that his voice was different.

“Naruto?”

Naruto sat, chest heaving. His mouth was bloody, his face pale. “What the hell happened?”

Sasuke’s hand tightened convulsively. “You don’t remember?”

“I d -- I reme -- I --” Naruto leaned forward and threw up. “I --”

“Shit.” Sasuke crawled forward, ignoring the pain from every part of his body, and gripped Naruto’s shoulder. “Naruto. Calm down.”

Naruto trembled. “Fuck. What did I . . . .” His eyelids slid slowly shut and then snapped back open. “What di . . . .” He touched his lips, looked at the blood, and then looked at Sasuke. His face flooded with color.

So did Sasuke’s. “It doesn’t matter,” he muttered gruffly. “Can you stand?”

Naruto wavered, leaning into Sasuke’s hand. “I don’t thi . . . I don’t . . . I . . . .” His eyes closed and he slumped.

Sasuke caught him, cursing steadily. Naruto was unconscious.

~

 _7:54 AM_

Sakura woke with her wrists screaming and her neck aching steadily. She looked around frantically, searching for the source of pain -- after a few minutes of sleepy confusion, she realized her wrists were bound above her head. They hurt because all of her weight was resting on them.

She got her feet under herself and stood quickly, relieving the pressure. The chains clanked loudly as she moved, shiny new steel against the limestone blocks. Sakura paid them no mind.

“Kakashi!” He was bound similarly, a few feet away. With her hands tied behind her, she couldn’t reach him, but after a moment of craning her neck she realized that he was still unconscious. “Dammit.”

She turned to inspect the chains. They were rather ordinary in all but one respect -- they were enchanted. When she tried to convert some of her stamina to chakara, the chains glowed and drew it right out of her.

Sighing, she turned back to Kakashi. Still unconscious.

After a moment’s intense effort, Sakura managed to link her hands together and ‘step’ through her arms, tangling herself up in her chains but getting her hands in front, where she could see them. And then she started the slow process of freeing herself.

~

 _8:00 AM_

Sasuke got about two hundred yards before he had to put Naruto down and try to heal himself. His gut was a solid mass of pain and he kept coughing up blood -- this time, not because of his tongue.

Now that he had some time to think -- at least, time to think without Naruto sitting on him and kissing him -- the entire thing seemed hopelessly bizarre. What had Kazunori done to make himself so strong? Why had he used the kids? After Naruto fainted, Sasuke had gone back into the cave and found the children, all of them dead. Three of them were in the back, the fourth near the entrance. It took Sasuke a moment, since the body had nearly been destroyed in the fighting, but he recognized it as Meiyo.

He would be sick later. He was just trying to breathe now.

But it was no good. No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t heal himself. So he picked Naruto up and kept heading towards the village.

Maybe Tsunade would come if she sensed that Naruto was in trouble. She was the Hokage, right? Had to be good for something. Maybe Kakashi and Sakura would complete their mission and come to help. Maybe he'd happen across one of the regular patrols.

He kept walking.

~

 _8:14 AM_

Sakura managed to bend one of the links in half, straighten it, and then bend it again. And then again. And then again. The metal was hot from the friction, even though she was moving very slowly. She wondered idly how long it would take her to break even a single link with her hands bound like this -- in the training exercises at the Academy, it had taken about forty minutes.

She’d lost count of how many times the link had been bent and un-bent when Kakashi stirred. Sakura watched him intently even as she kept working. “Kakashi?”

His eye opened slowly and he blinked. “Sakura?” He glanced up at his hands and stood slowly. “Where . . . .”

“A dungeon,” she said grimly. “We lost.”

He grimaced. “I remember.” He looked at her hands. “How long have you been awake?”

“I have no idea,” she said honestly.

He craned his neck and looked at the chains binding him, identical to Sakura’s. He tried to step through his arms, as Sakura had, but he was too tall and not as flexible. After he caught her trying not to smirk, he gave up and worked on breaking the chains with his hands behind his back.

They were silent for a while, concentrating. It was impossible to measure time in their windowless dungeon, impossible to do anything but think constantly of escape. It was suffocating. Sakura noticed absently that Kakashi kept jerking his head around to keep an eye on the door and seemed very tense -- his shoulders were drawn and tight, brow furrowed.

“You’re all right?” he finally asked.

“I’m fine,” she said, voice tight as her hands strained.

He nodded briskly. The silence resumed.

When Sakura’s link snapped, the sound was surprisingly loud. “Ha!” She stumbled forward as her left arm was freed and rotated it gladly. Contrarily, her shoulder popped.

“Good,” Kakashi said. “Do me a favor.”

Sakura rubbed her wrist, wincing as her fingers slipped in blood. “Yeah?”

“Push up my headplate.” She stopped and stared at him. “I can’t use my chakara, so I can only see out of one eye. It’s like being half-blind.”

“O-okay.” Sakura reached over, touching her fingertips to the smooth cloth over Kakashi’s temple. He’d stopped focusing on his work and was looking at her, oddly enough, with a strange sort of intensity.

Carefully, struggling to ignore the sweat trickling down her spine, Sakura slipped her fingers beneath the band of Kakashi’s headplate and pushed it up. The skin of his face was surprisingly soft under her fingers, and the look he was giving her . . . so intent. It was as if he could see right into her, or through her, or something.

Without his chakara to activate it, his  _sharingan_  was brick red, startling in contrast to his other, gray eye, but far from it’s usual lurid crimson. Sakura had the weirdest urge to run her fingers over the scar slashing his eyelid and cheek, to feel it under the pad of her fingers, to memorize it.

She yanked her hand back and he turned away, focusing his attention on the chains at his back.

Sakura faced the wall, refusing to glance over her shoulder and see if he was watching her. When the first of Kakashi’s chains broke with a loud snap, she jumped. When the second went, he came to her side and helped her without a word. If he noticed that her hands were shaking, he kept silent.

~

 _8:43 AM_

Sasuke could only walk three steps without stumbling when he heard distant voices. He automatically searched for a place to hide, even as he knew that it was futile. The weakness in his limbs would keep him from jumping, and the blood-loss and pain in his belly would keep him from fighting. If the voices were enemies, then he and Naruto were dead.

Someone grabbed his shoulder suddenly, startling him. Someone else tried to take Naruto from him. “Sasuke!”

Sasuke lifted his head slowly, tightening his grip on Naruto. He blinked at the young woman at his side. “Ino?”

“They’re hurt really badly,” Shikamaru was saying to someone, sounding tense. He was the one trying to take Naruto away, although he abruptly gave up and just checked his vitals. “Sasuke, can you hear me?”

“He just said my name,” Ino said anxiously. Sasuke swayed and nearly fell.

“All right. Sit down, Sasuke.” It wasn’t Shikamaru bossing him around this time, it was Chouji.

Slowly, Sasuke sat. He put Naruto on the ground by his feet, where he could keep an eye on him. Even as he watched, Shikamaru pulled up the hem of Naruto’s shirt, checking the seal on his belly. “Still there,” Shikamaru muttered. Ino let out a huge sigh of relief. Chouji healed the worst of Sasuke’s wounds while Shikamaru and Ino had a quick, terse conversation.

"How did you guys . . . ." Sasuke forgot what he was asking halfway through.

Chouji answered, large hand gripping his shoulder tightly. "Hokage-sama contacted us," he said. "She was watching you guys with a chakara map when she saw Naruto lose control of the kyuubi -- his chakara was huge, a disc instead of a pinpoint. Freaky as hell."

“Go to sleep,” Ino ordered Sasuke suddenly, sounding calm and in control again. “We’ll take care of everything.”

“Wait.” Shikamaru forced Sasuke to meet his eyes. “The children?”

Sasuke shook his head, the world dipping and spinning crazily around him. “They’re all dead,” he rasped. “We failed. They were dead when we got there --”

He was almost glad that he passed out then, because the expression on Shikamaru’s face was terrible to see.

~

 _9:34 AM_

"This way," Kakashi murmured, right eye shut tightly as he stared with his sharingan. Sakura clenched and unclenched her fists anxiously, aching for a kunai or a shuriken. This business of being unarmed was terribly worrying.

"How far can you see?" she finally whispered.

Kakashi opened his right eye and glanced at her. "Not far," he admitted softly. "A few dozen feet. Sasuke can see for miles."

Sakura nodded. Of course she knew that.

They reached the lower levels of the compound in silence. Kakashi began opening doors and peering inside as Sakura watched the hall and searched for traps. They worked efficiently and quietly until Kakashi opened a door and made a quiet choking sound. Sakura whirled around, her hands flying for weapons that weren't there.

Kakashi yanked the door shut. His face was pale, and he was sweating.

"The children?" Sakura asked. Her voice was normal, terribly loud in the silence.

Kakashi sighed, tipping his head forward and leaning against a nearby wall. Sakura stared at him, eyebrows furrowing together, somewhere between simple confusion and anguish -- it couldn't be possible, he had to be mistaken, they couldn't be -- Meiyo and Hogo and the genin whose name she didn't know --

"Kakashi," she murmured urgently, "we have to . . . ." But she stopped then because she couldn't think of anything to say, and Kakashi was watching her with such a sad face. "Are they really dead?" she asked in a small voice.

"Yes," he said hoarsely. "I'm sorry, Sakura."

Why was he apologizing to her? What a strange thing to do. He certainly hadn't done anything wrong . . . it had been her responsibility to find them, hadn't it? His too, of course, but --

"Oh, my god," she whispered, covering her mouth. "Shit. They -- no way. Oh, fuck."

Kakashi slipped his arm around her and gripped the back of her neck, tugging her into a somewhat tense hug. She closed her eyes and leaned against him for a moment, struggling to tame her heartbeat and the pounding in her head.  _I failed._

 _I failed. I failed I failed I . . . oh, god._  For a moment she thought she was going to faint, and Kakashi's grip on her tightened slightly, and then the world righted itself and she felt very calm.

Patting Kakashi's shoulder, Sakura slipped out of his arms. His eyes were very serious as he looked down at her for a long moment.

"The woman," Sakura finally said. "We need to find her."

Kakashi nodded. They continued searching in silence, managing somehow to communicate through the barest gestures -- a hand on a shoulder, a light touch against a back, or even a single glance -- and when they found nothing, they went back upstairs.

They found their enemy sprawled across a small bed, careless of the body of her comrade in the corner, or of the dead children in the dungeon. Sakura considered killing her as she slept, but Kakashi had already yanked her to her feet and bound her with a quantity of string. He carried her back to the village while Sakura refused to touch her, shuddering at just the thought.

The way home was long, the sunlight bright and utterly surreal.


	9. Chapter 9

**June 26**

"Do you know," Neji said coolly, thoughtfully, "I really thought you'd save him."

Sasuke had his back to the door, but he turned at the sound of Neji's voice. "I'm sorry," he said, a rare show of sincerity. "I tried." His eyes were drawn back to Naruto, still unconcious in a hospital bed.

"You tried," Neji repeated in his soft, faintly harsh way. "You  _tried_."

"I'm sorry," Sasuke said again, uselessly. His head might as well have been stuffed with cotton for all the good it was doing him and his entire body ached, from sitting too long, from worrying too long. He had been weaker, wearier, and sadder in the past, but somehow, every previous experience dimmed in comparison to this. Naruto was unconscious, maybe dying, ten innocent children were dead, and Neji clearly blamed him for it all.

Neji entered the room slowly, shoulders faintly hunched, as if his grief for Meiyo was a literal thing that he carried. His eyes, however, blazed.

"He was like my brother," Neji added, almost offhandedly, but his voice cracked. Sasuke closed his eyes. He didn't want to hear of brothers, and they both knew it. "He was like me."

Sasuke didn't bother to apologize again. It obviously wasn't doing any good.

"I would like to know," Neji said suddenly, voice crisp, "if the three of you even cared."

"Don't," Sasuke said warningly.

"Because from where I'm standing, it doesn't look like you bothered." Neji sneered, staring down at him. He didn't seem to take any notice of Naruto. "You're saying that the most powerful team in Konoha couldn't find ten kids and save them? What the hell," and he paused, voice raspy, breath coming hard, "what the  _hell_  were you doing that you couldn't? What the --" He turned sharply away and left as abruptly as he'd entered.

Sasuke sighed and curled in on himself, elbows resting on his knees. He heard Hinata's soft voice from the hall and Neji's angry snap. "I don't care if it's fair --"

Hinata talked him down, quiet soprano rising and falling. There was nothing for a few moments, and Sasuke took the opporunity to compose himself, tuck his emotions away where no one else could see. Not even a Hyuuga -- not even Hinata, entering the room without a noise, eyes red and sleepless. Unlike her cousin, she had never mastered the art of composure.

"I don't blame you," she said to Sasuke, eerie white eyes blinking down at him placidly.

"I know," Sasuke said, and didn't bother to explain himself. He didn't know Hinata, didn't care about her. Naruto was the one who cared. Naruto was always the one who cared.

Naruto was probably dying.

Hinata ignored him and went to Naruto's side, gripping his tan hand in both of hers. Neji came in and stood a short distance away, not at all looking at Sasuke.

"You need to wake up, Naruto," Hinata said softly. "We're all waiting for you."

Nothing happened. Hinata left.

~

"There's some evidence that Hikage-Ibuki may have ties to Akatsuki," Tsunade said, pushing a mound of papers away and sitting across from Kakashi. "Their goals are certainly the same: power at any price."

Kakashi nodded. "The families?"

"The Hyuugas have yet to issue any kind of official response, although Neji is devastated and Hanabi has already vowed to get revenge." Tsunade sighed, rubbing her forehead. "I think that she and Hinata are planning to turn the family resources towards investigating the group, but I can't be sure."

"The other families?"

"The Adachi's extend their thanks for the village's sympathy and hope that nothing like this ever happens again. The Yokokawa clan has promised to help investigate Hikage-Ibuki. The Hiraoka clan thanks you and your team for it's work, and hopes that nothing like this ever happens again. The Raikatuji's extend their sympathy to the other families and hopes that nothing like this ever happens again. The Sakai clan is leaving Konoha and hopes that nothing . . . you know how it goes." Tsunade continued and Kakashi listened intently, staring into space. Unlike the others -- 'the kids' he couldn't help but think of them -- for him, that list wasn't just a list. Those were people he'd interviewed, spoken to. There were pictures on their walls of children who would never come home, beds that would never be slept in again, voices that would never be heard, lives that could never be reclaimed . . . not just names, but certainly addendums to his endless list of regrets.

He'd tried. He'd damn well tried, and it hadn't amounted to anything in the end. A disturbingly familiar pattern.

Tsunade finally reached the end and Kakashi stayed silent. She finally said, "This has been an unparalleled attack, you know. We have the sympathy of everyone, even from foreign countries."

"Hn," Kakashi said.

"The Sand is actually sending a representative, but they've been our closest allies ever since the war with Orochimaru. Using children in order to open up the chakara gates . . . even Akatsuki never sank so low."

"Children," Kakashi said, "are the one thing that all of the villages want to protect."

Tsunade sighed. "I miss you when you're not your usual optimistic self," she said abruptly. "What should I do to help?"

He patted her on the shoulder and left, not bothering to make a response. Shizune met him at the doors, her arms crossed over her chest as she listened to the night-bugs chirp.

"Have you seen Sakura?" she asked.

Kakashi shook his head.

"There's a memorial service in two days," Shizune explained. "I haven't seen her for a while and neither has her friend, Ino. I don't know if she's heard . . . ."

"I'll find her," Kakashi said, knowing exactly where she'd be. "I'll tell her."

Shizune nodded and stepped aside so that he could pass. She kept her face lowered to the ground, either out of grief or some misplaced sense of respect. Kakashi wasn't sure which.

He walked the streets in silence, making his way to the Haruno residence without looking up once. No one that he passed took any notice of him, except for a child that stood in the shadows of her parents' shop.

Kakashi glanced at her and she darted away, disappearing into the shadows. He wondered if she was ghost until he heard her giggle, and decided that she wasn't. Ghosts, he was certain, could not laugh.

~

"Thank you for everything," Sakura said numbly. Bara kissed her on the forehead and left, still dabbing at her eyes. Sakura went to the couch, sitting slowly and staring at nothing.

Miryokuteki had been dead for two days now, and Sakura still wasn't sure how to function. Sasuke was waiting in the hospital with Naruto, and Kakashi had vanished again, as he so often did. Ino and Shikamaru were busy on a mission, and Sakura couldn't bring herself to bother them.

She'd glimpsed Neji standing outside the Hyuuga estate the other day and found her steps slowing. He'd looked at her dully, so dully, and yet with such pain that she'd moved on, quite unable to apologize.

 _A horrible thing has happened here,_  Bara had said, grieving for the children and her dead friend. To lose the old as you lost the young . . . .  _A horrible thing._

Sakura looked up as someone knocked. "Come in," she called, expecting another friend of the family, another well-wisher.

Kakashi entered, shutting the door behind him. Sakura sighed a little at the sight of him and sank back into the couch. "I'm glad you're all right," she said, looking him over for injuries. Nothing, of course.

He nodded and came to sit beside her, his hands still resting in his pockets. The silence stretched for quite some time, broken only by the ticking of the clock.

"I haven't been paying much attention lately," he finally admitted, with a hint of his usual rueful humor. "How long has she been gone?"

"Two days," Sakura said.

"I'm sorry," he said, and she remembered how he apologized after he found the children dead, and she wondered dizzily if he blamed himself as much as she blamed herself, if he, like her, couldn't help but take personal responsibility for everything that happened around him. A way of feigning control that you couldn't grasp, a way of punishing yourself for the times you brought about failure. Kakashi, too, was used to being surrounded by the powerful, the well-nigh indestructible. He knew what weakness felt like.

But she didn't ask because his hand had left his pocket and was touching her jaw, the curve of it where it joined her ear. Sakura stared at him, wide-eyed, and his other hand touched the bridge of her nose, trailed down it and touched her lips. She blinked and he kissed her lightly through his mask.

Even as she pulled away, she gripped a handful of his vest. Her head bowed as her mouth pulled down into a grimace, tears coming hard and body shaking. She hadn't wept at all until now.

Kakashi pushed her hair back and pulled her into a hug. The urge to cry left as soon as his arms went around her, but she held onto him anyway, pressing her face into his shoulder, shivering as he stroked her hair. Much of the night passed in just that fashion, and neither of them moved.

~

Tsunade was poking disinterestedly at a cold dinner when Sakura and Kakashi finally returned, drawn and silent. She pushed the plate away gratefully and gestured for them to sit.

"We didn't find much of anything," Sakura said, voice muted. She looked slightly more rested but worn out with grief. Kakashi sat beside her, his hand lightly brushing her arm, a casual little uneeded thing. Tsunade half-smiled to herself.

"Nothing at all?" she asked Kakashi.

He shook his head. "I checked with my  _sharingan,_ " he said. "It's not worth sending any of the Hyuugas out there -- I could see where the seals had been laid, to hide both locations." He shrugged casually. "It was completely unlike anything I'd ever seen before."

Sakura nodded dully. "Me, too."

"So it was probably devloped by Hikage-Ibuki?"

"Almost certainly." Sakura sank into her seat. "What about the prisoner?"

Tsunade glanced swiftly at Kakashi. "You didn't tell her?" Sakura looked at Kakashi, too. "Well, it's not too surprising, really -- an assasian found her and killed her just after she was brought it."

"I was part of the team guarding her," Kakashi explained. "The assassian was skilled, obviously, well above ANBU-level."

Sakura nodded, expression downcast. "So we've got nothing?"

"We have a few things. There's a group of jounin and chunnin investigating, both in Konoha and outside the village. Iruka's in charge, actually, which is the only reason he's not with Sasuke and Naruto." Tsunade stood, and Kakashi and Sakura followed suit. "You two need to go home and sleep."

 _It's not over yet,_  she wanted to say as they left, but she was sure that they already knew. It would never really be over.

~

 **June 28**

When Sasuke opened his eyes, disturbed by some faint sound, someone was sitting up in Naruto's bed. He leapt to his feet and sent his chair clattering to the floor.

Naruto jumped. "Sasuke! Man, I thought you were slee --"

Sasuke gripped both his shoulders, knowing full well that he looked like a maniac and not giving a damn. "You're awake!"

"Yeah, I do that someti --"

Sasuke let him go and ran into the hallway. A nurse was already approaching, apparently alerted by the sound of falling furniture. "He's awake," Sasuke said, voice rough with sleep. "Naruto Uzumaki. Find Hokage-sama --" She was already hurrying away.

Naruto was trying to get out of bed when Sasuke came back. "What's going o --"

"Sit down!" Sasuke ordered agitatedly. "Moron, what are you trying to do, give yourself a relapse?"

"What do you mean, what happ --"

Tsunade appeared. "Naruto! You're awake!"

"Yeah, I --"

She pushed him back into the pillows and pulled up his shirt, looking at the seal on his stomach. Naruto let out an indignant yelp and pawed at her. "Hey, what're you --"

"Everything's fine," she interrupted, letting go of his clothing only to grab his jaw and check his eyes and pulse. "Do you feel all right?"

"I --"

"He's acting like himself," Sasuke blurted, unable to control the urge to chatter nervously, enormously relieved and equally terrified. Did Naruto remember what had gone on between them? Did he remember the battle with Kazunori?

"WOULD SOMEONE LET ME TALK?" Naruto bellowed.

Tsunade jerked back disapprovingly. "Naruto," she said patiently. "You're in a hospital. People are trying to rest."

Naruto mumbled hopelessly and hung his head, glaring sourly at Sasuke, who just blinked. Tsunade grinned and forced Naruto's chin up, kissing him on the forehead. "You brat," she said, still smiling. "I'm glad you're all right. And so is Sasuke."

At that, Sasuke scowled murderously. "I am not," he lied.

Naruto gave him a  _yeah, right_  look. "What happened?" he asked. "To the kids? I don't remember -- I think I was going to look for them when something went wrong --"

Sasuke's stomach clenched in either disappointment or relief. He sat heavily in his chair as Tsunade perched on the edge of Naruto's bed.

"From the beginning," Naruto added, looking tense. "I . . . it's not good, is it?"

"No," Tsunade said honestly. She smoothed her tunic nervously and glanced at Sasuke. He leaned against the arm of his chair and closed his eyes, communicating both exhaustion and a general desire to be unhelpful. She sighed.

"Two of the children were killed early on," Tsunade said softly. Naruto stared down at her hands, folded in her lap and trembling faintly. "We found their bodies hidden in the old shack that the Hikage-Ibuki were using as their headquarters. One of them was the genin, who apparently fought too much. The other was a little boy who must have gotten sick . . . ."

Naruto nodded and closed his eyes. "They're all dead, aren't they?" he said hollowly. "We were too late."

"They needed eight children for the ritual," Tsunade continued, amber eyes focused on some distant point. "So they kidnapped Hogo and Meiyo . . . the explosion of light that I saw was the ritual. The other eight children died then."

Naruto stared silently, scowled fiercely, and finally managed to ask, "How did they hide themselves?"

"They created their own jutsu, supported by the immense amount of power they were getting from the ritual." Tsunade tucked her hair behind her ear. "We had a prisoner, but before we could question her, she was killed." Her mouth twisted into an ugly frown. "It's clear that the five or so operatives that were in the area were throwaways, powerful only because of the ritual. The assassin . . . was very good. He got past eight ANBU and a jounin."

"Kakashi," Sasuke guessed, and Tsunade nodded, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. He pushed his greasy hair out of his face somewhat self-conciously. He'd been wanting a shower and food for a while, but he'd mostly wanted Naruto to wake up -- now that he had, Sasuke felt the need to flee for his life.

"Ritual?" Naruto asked. He was staring at them both with very wide blue eyes, face paler and thinner than normal.

"Similar to the Extreme Lotus," Tsunade explained. "But it broke the children's barriers and stole their chakara . . . ." Naruto looked sickened, gripping his blankets and staring down at his hands.

"They . . . that's . . . ."

The three of them were silent for a long time, lost in their own thoughts. Sasuke was actually itching for Naruto to break the silence, for the first time in his life, when he heard the door open behind him.

"Naruto?"

Naruto looked up. "Sakura-chan," he said solemnly. The pink-haired woman darted forward, wrapping him up in a hug like she hadn't thought she would ever see him again. He hugged her lightly in return, patting her on the shoulder.

"I'm okay," he promised, pulling back with a grin. Tsunade scooted aside so that Sakura could sit. "Hey, hey, you weren't worried? It's me, Naruto! Of course I'm okay."

She smiled brightly. "Of course you are! Like I was worried about you." She gave an entirely unconvincing scoff, but her eyes were very red.

"Sakura's had a rough few days," Kakashi said quietly, shutting the door and coming to Sasuke's side. His hands rested casually in his pockets, and to an outsider he probably looked calm, even relaxed. Sasuke knew him well enough to read every line of tension in his body. "Her mother died the other day."

"You --!" Sasuke sat up, eyes flying open wide. "When -- why didn't you tell me?"

Sakura bit her lip and looked down at her lap. "I . . . didn't want to bother you. You were so worried about Naruto . . . ."

Naruto and Sasuke exchanged glances. Cold all over, Sasuke stared at the floor and Naruto turned a brilliant shade of red, yanking nervously at his hair. "Hey, Sasuke!" He stopped, stumped, and then added, "Hey, you were worried about me? What about you? You were all bloody!"

Sasuke looked up, eyes narrowed. His neck itched. "I thought you didn't remember what happened."

"I remember a little," Naruto said defensively.

Sasuke  _hmphed_  a little and waved his concern away. "I'm fine."

"And Sakura-chan." Naruto's expression softened immediately as he looked at her. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," she said, smiling only a little.

Naruto looked to Kakashi, either in concern or to verify that Sakura was telling the truth, but Kakashi just met his gaze woodenly. Sighting, Naruto sank back against his pillows. "Well, I . . . ." He frowned fiercely. "Those kids . . . those people that killed them . . . ."

"We're already investigating," Tsunade said.

"I want to help!"

"I'll see what we can do." Tsunade stood. "I need to get back. You'll be all right?"

Naruto nodded quickly, expression only slightly forlorn. "Yeah, don't worry about me, overprotective old lady."

She batted him lightly on the head and vanished. Sasuke relaxed slightly once she was gone.

"Am I gonna be allowed to leave?" Naruto asked into the silence.

"You'll need to stay with someone who can keep an eye on you, probably," Sakura said. "I'll go talk to the nurse." She pushed open the door and glanced over her shoulder, but Kakashi was already right behind her. They left together.

"That's so gross," Naruto finally said, wrinkling his nose. "Ew, Kakashi-sensei and Sakura-chan? Gross."

Sasuke said, "Tch," and agreed.

~

"Why do  _I_  have to look after the idiot?"

Sakura and Kakashi stared at him blankly for a moment, and then Sakura turned quickly away. "Why not?" Kakashi asked, with the wide grin he liked to wear when pissing Sasuke off. "There's not a problem, is there?"

Plainly simmering, Sasuke growled, "No."

"Good."

"There'll be even less of a problem when I kill you."

"That may be difficult."

Sakura started to drag Kakashi away. "I"ll pick up my kitten tomorrow," she told Sasuke. He scowled. "It's not that bad," she chided, amused. "He's well-behaved, at least."

Sasuke looked pointedly at Kakashi. "That's not the problem," he said. Sakura rolled her eyes and she and Kakashi left.

Sighing, Sasuke turned and made his way back to Naruto's room. It was just starting to get dark -- Iruka had stopped by a few hours earlier, but was soon called back away. Everyone stared at Sasuke as he passed, but he was used to that.

Naruto was sitting on his bed, a knapsack of clothes on his lap. His eyes were distant, unhappy, and he didn't really look at Sasuke as he entered.

"Are you ready?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto nodded towards a small collection of flowers and cards. "I was supposed to gather those up," he said, voice scratchy. "But I got tired."

Sasuke rearranged them, handing Naruto the cards and gathering the flowers. He teleported directly into his living room, deposited the things on the table, and went back to the hospital.

"Sasuke?"

Sasuke had appeared in the hallway instead of Naruto's room. He went in. "Yeah?"

"Did, um." Naruto finally looked at him. "Did you talk to Hinata?"

Sasuke froze, still in the doorway. "A little," he finally said.

"Was she angry?"

"It's Hinata," Sasuke said impaitently. "She's never angry."

Naruto ducked his head and said nothing, eyes vague. "I keep thinking . . . ." He took a deep breath. "I keep waiting to be, to be, angry but I'm not . . . I'm just tired and sad. I don't know --" He yanked wearily at his hair, hiding his face in his hands. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

Sasuke watched him. He hadn't felt much of anything for the children -- of course, he'd felt a little something, but . . . he'd been too worried about Naruto, and now about Sakura, and besides. He had a lot of experiance with gut-wrenching, devastating grief. This didn't come close.

"I don't know what's going to happen now," Naruto admitted, voice muffled. "If this . . . I don't want to keep feeling like shit but . . . I want it to stop."

For a moment, Naruto's words brought it back, and Sasuke lowered his head, eyes almost closing. It was like being ten-years-old again, realizing that it had been two whole years since his family died, and still crying his eyes out on his birthday just because -- just because. "It doesn't," he said, "go away," and Naruto finally looked at him.

Instantly, he turned contrite, and awkward. "Sasuke --"

Sasuke turned for the door. "Can you walk?" he demanded frostily. "Or do you need help?"

He could walk. But when he would have stumbled, he leaned on Sasuke's shoulder without asking, and Sasuke let him.

~

Sakura woke up in Kakashi's bed, faintly musty blankets wrapped firmly around her. She tried to tell the time by looking at the shadows on the wall but it was a no go -- besides, it didn't really matter. She didn't have anywhere to rush off too, no one to look after. Not even Naruto or Sasuke.

The thought of being alone with her grief was enough to make her stomach hurt. She heard someone in the room and sat up slowly, spotting her companion with a sense of relief. "Kakashi?"

He was sitting by the window, cheek propped against his curled fist. He looked at her quickly. "Awake?"

Sakura slipped out of bed, bare feet padding on the floor, and joined him on the couch. She tried to straighten her hopelessly wrinkled clothes even as she yawned and said, "Yep. I thought you'd have been called away by now, to work on the investigation . . . ."

"Nah."

He wasn't wearing his mask, although his  _sharingan_  was covered, and as she tilted her head and looked at him, his knuckles brushed the scar under his eye almost self-consciously. Like he wanted to hide. She kissed him briefly and felt him smile.

"Good morning, by the way," he said, with his strange form of cheerfulness, totally unexpected and yet totally sincere.

"It's late afternoon," Sakura reminded him.

"Never been good with that time thing," he admitted.

~

 **June 30**

Sasuke was just rinsing the shampoo out of his hair when the shower curtain rustled. He looked down at the suspect corner and asked warily, "Naruto?"

His only response was a quiet, "Meow?"

He rolled his eyes. "Naruto!"

There was a thump, and then the sound of footsteps. "What?"

"Get the stupid cat out of my bathroom," he ordered. The door opened as a little white paw worked it's way around the edge of the shower curtain, claws out. He flicked water at it.

"Aw, little cat." Sasuke could just make out Naruto's shadow as he bent and picked the kitten up. "He likes you, Sasuke-chaaaaan . . . ."

"Shut up," Sasuke mumbled, feeling suddenly very self-conscious. There was only a thin layer of plastic diving Naruto from his very naked self, after all.

"Poor kitty." Sasuke could see Naruto moving around, and then heard him give an exaggerated sniff. "Ew, what's the smell? It's, like, flowers or something."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "It's called soap, moron. It wouldn't surprise me if you hadn't heard of it."

"My soap doesn't smell like someone's garden," Naruto said, trying to be snide, but Sasuke could hear him snickering. He crossed his arms over his chest, forgetting momentarily that Naruto couldn't see him.

"Whatever you're doing, knock it off."

"What makes you think I'm doing something?" Naruto demanded.

"If you flush the toilet, I'll kill you."

"I'm not gonna flush the toilet!"

Sasuke thought a moment, and then added, "And leave my clothes alone, dead last."

Naruto laughed and left quickly, shutting the door. Sasuke stuck his head out of the shower and scowled -- just as he'd thought, his clothes were missing. Grumbling, he switched off the water and grabbed a towel, wringing out his hair and thinking death threats in Naruto's direction. Back from the brink of death for a few hours and the idiot was already pulling pranks . . . it figured . . . .

Sasuke tied his towel around his waist and went into the hallway. The door to his parents' old room -- no matter how often it was used as a guest room, he couldn't think of it as anything but -- was shut, although he could hear Naruto giggling behind it. Sasuke stomped off to his own room and yanked on a pair of pants. Naruto knocked on his door.

Sasuke yanked it open. "My clothes?" he asked, arching his eyebrow.

Naruto threw his shorts at him. He was wearing Sasuke's shirt, and looked downright ridiculous as he tried to hide his face behind the collar. "Do I look like you?" he asked, snickering, and then tried to scowl. "What about now?"

"Give me my shirt, Naruto," Sasuke said calmly. He always said that Naruto was the world's biggest idiot, and moments like this only proved him right.

"This collar is uncomfortable," Naruto complained, yanking on it. "It itches. How do you stand it? And it's too big."

"The collar is not uncomfortable," Sasuke said, leaning against the doorframe. "You're just an idiot. And the shirt is too big because you're smaller than me."

"I am not!"

"You're smaller than  _everyone_ , dead last. Even Hinata."

Naruto scowled, still yanking on the collar. "I'm taller than Hinata!"

"You are not. And don't rip my shirt."

Naruto's scowl melted into a smirk. "Make me."

"No," Sasuke said, flushing.

"Aw, what are you, scared? Scared of  _short_  little me? Poor Sasuke, he's not brave without his gigantic collar to eat his head --"

Sasuke jabbed him in the back of his neck. Naruto clutched the injured spot, yelling, "Ow! Hey --!" and Sasuke grabbed the hem of his shirt, yanking it up. Spluttering, Naruto straightened his arms so Sasuke could get it over his head. "Jerk! You cheated!"

"I did not," Sasuke said, smirking, and turned towards his closet. "Now I have to get another shirt, idiot, you stretched it."

"How can you tell? It's massive."

Sasuke tossed the shirt aside and realized that Naruto had followed him into his room. "What are you doing?" he demanded, amused, as Naruto sprawled across his bed like he belonged there.

"I'm tired," Naruto said, and yawned to prove his point.

"Go sleep in your room."

"No."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "The memorial service is at dusk, Naruto. You have to be ready."

Naruto was silent for a moment, eyes shut, and then he sighed and opened them. "I know," he admitted seriously. "I was trying not to think about it."

Sasuke went back to his closet, searching for another shirt. He didn't respond to Naruto's comment, deciding, somewhat flustered, that there was nothing he could say. Expressions of sympathy were beyond him.

"Sasuke," Naruto said, still solemnly. The blankets rustled as he sat up. "Come here."

Sasuke was still for a moment, but left his closet and turned to face Naruto. "What?"

Shirtless and somewhat flushed, Naruto stared up at him intently. "Come here."

Surely things like this didn't happen outside of highly inappropriate daydreams. Sasuke's hand slipped from the hanger he'd been holding and he went to Naruto's side, towering over him. "What?"

Naruto gripped his hand and tugged on it until he sat. They stared at each other for a moment, both of them plainly nervous, before Sasuke leaned forward and kissed Naruto solidly.

"There," he said, like his heart wasn't in his throat. "That's what you wanted, right?"

Naruto nodded, still very close to him, and their lips brushed again. His hands came up and slid slowly over Sasuke's bare shoulders, his thumbs stroked the flare of his collarbone. He stared intently at the contrast of their skin, thought that Sasuke was very, very warm, and Sasuke pushed his chin up to kiss him again.

The whole house was still and quiet, except for Naruto's heart, which had decided that it didn't like his chest and would rather thump it's way out, thanks. Sasuke didn't seem to be much better off, looking down and away nervously, swallowing hard -- Naruto watched his throat flex and ducked his head, pressed an open-mouthed kiss to his neck. It earned him a shiver, a little sound, and he was completely and totally lost.

Not that he'd stood much of a chance in the first place. In the back of his mind, Naruto made a note to thank Shikamaru.

~

Sakura was the last to speak at the memorial, and glued herself to Kakashi's side once she was done, wiping away tears and trembling all over. Sasuke and Naruto had already said their pieces, and were silent. Kakashi's expression, or what could be seen of it, was sad.

The gathering dispersed just as the last hints of twilight faded and night set in. Neji was a short distance away from the crowd, staring up at the moon. His youngest cousin was still by the small gathering of photographs and flowers, clenching her fists and speaking quietly to herself, or perhaps to one of the small pictures.

Sasuke stared at Hanabi for a long time and contemplated speaking to her, advising her away from the path he knew she was considering, but her sister found him first.

"Naruto, Sasuke." Hinata forced a small smile. "I'm glad to see you're both all right."

Sasuke nodded. Naruto said, "Thanks, Hinata." He hesitated, then added, "I'll talk to you later? I wanna say something to the old lady . . . ." She gestured for him to run off.

"I've already talked to Hanabi," Hinata said quietly. The wind blew her short dark hair into her face until she pushed it back. "I know that Hokage-sama is going to send you and Naruto to investigate Hikage-Ibuki . . . if you would, would you look after her?"

Hinata, unlike many people, seemed to understand him, perhaps because she also understood Neji. "I'll see what I can do," Sasuke said, seemingly disinterested, but she smiled and thanked him.

"It's good that Naruto's better," she added, already turning to go. "Even with all of this sadness, it makes things better to know that he's all right."

Sasuke understood the sentiment exactly.

~

"You and Sasuke will be visiting Mist Country to investigate," Tsunade said, leading Naruto away from the funeral site. "I'm probably going to send Hanabi with you."

Naruto nodded. "No rest for the best, huh?" He turned a haunted look on mound of flowers and photos. Tsunade nodded slowly.

"There's something I meant to ask you earlier," she said. He looked around at her curiously. "You distracted me with your story about your friend that had a crush on you . . . I guess you've figured that out, yeah?" He blushed. "Yeah. It's about Sasuke."

Naruto fidgeted. "Uh, okay."

"Has he always been like this?" Tsunade wondered. She crossed her arms and gripped the billowy sleeves of her black top, shivering as the wind yanked them from her hands. "So serious and sad? Sometimes, when I talk to him, it's like he doesn't have a thing in the world that he cares for." Her amber eyes narrowed as she looked at Sasuke, speaking quietly to Hinata. "Other than the dead."

"Huh." Naruto looked over his shoulder at Sasuke. "I don't know about you, but he seems happy to me. Happier than usual, actually."

Tsunade stared.

"I guess you have to know him," he said, and shrugged. "He's been kind of odd lately, but he's acting normal now."

Tsunade tilted her head, intending fully to argue the point, but Hinata had left Sasuke and was gathering Neji and Hanabi, guiding them both home. Her own grief, Tsunade was sure, had barely been touched upon, but Hinata was familiar with the responsibilities as the clan head, and knew when to push her own needs aside. Kurenai would look after her.

Sakura and Kakashi were waiting for Sasuke and Naruto, standing together and talking softly. "I'll see you later?" Naruto asked, but he'd already locked gazes with Sasuke.

"I'll see you," Tsunade promised. Naruto darted off, slowing when he reached Sasuke and saying something that she couldn't hear. Sasuke responded, and the two of them were serious -- but there was something there. She couldn't quite see it, had never managed to quite see it, but it was always there, just beneath the fierce rivalry and friendship.

The two of them walked to Sakura and Kakashi, and the four of them left together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N #1: Plothole ahoy?
> 
> Did anyone notice that Tsunade said early on that there weren't any ninjas available to help in the investigation? And then Naruto recruited Shikamaru is his romantic woes, and Sakura and Ino had lunch together?
> 
> More on why this isn't a plothole here.
> 
> A/N #2: There are so, so many people that I need to thank, just for being supportive and kind and for reading. I know that there were times when I didn't respond to everyone's reviews, but I truly appreciated them all. Thankyou thankyou to all of you who took the time.
> 
> Also, major thanks and love to: kidinair, shiyasim, absenceofmind, and saiyaness. You guys rock. <3


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